Evil By Nature
by Game2002
Summary: A dangerous criminal has entered Gensokyo to cause chaos the likes of which its inhabitants has never seen before. Can this dangerous man be apprehended before he goes too far?
1. Approaching Incident

.

.

.

.

.

_A Game2002 Production_

.

.

.

.

.

It was way past midnight, a time when most living things had fallen into deep slumber. The only ones that were still up and performing activities were those nocturnal in nature, be it animals, demons, or other kinds of supernatural beings.

Despite the rise of nocturnal beings at a time like this, the atmosphere was, for the most part, silent. The most notable sounds heard at a time like this were the cries of owls and crickets, the rustling of leaves, and other unidentifiable sounds.

It was also at times like this when those not of nocturnal nature were indoors, but such wasn't the case for a certain red-haired woman dressed in green Chinese clothing. Meiling Hong, the gatekeeper of a large Western-styled mansion dyed almost completely in brownish-red, a sight that might send shivers down the spines of some people, as something consisting mostly of that color screamed eerie and unnerving.

Meiling was standing in the center of the only gate leading into the mansion grounds, sleeping in a standing position, a feat that could be considered worthy of praise, because sleeping peacefully in that kind of position was considered really hard to pull off.

However, being one given the responsibility to make sure that no one enters the mansion grounds without her permission, Meiling woke up to the sound and presence of something in front of her. Due to the darkness, she was only able to make out the silhouette of the assumed intruder that was moving in her direction. Whatever it was, there was no way she was going to let it into the mansion at a time like this. It would have to get past her first.

Getting into a defensive stance, Meiling said to the intruder in a voice that was loud enough to be heard by it, but not enough to be heard by those in the mansion, "The Scarlet Devil Mansion is off limits at a time like this! Whatever business you have, please come back in the morning! Whoever you are, please leave at once!" However, the intruder either didn't hear what she said or ignored her warning, as it kept on moving toward her. "Did you hear what I told you just now? Please leave at once! Failure to heed my warnings and I will not hesitate to use force!"

The intruder kept on closing in on her, and as it did, its size seemed to grow, so the gatekeeper was starting to be sure that it wasn't humanoid in appearance. It might be a large animal, but what animal was there that had such a square-shaped body? Suddenly, the "eyes" of the intruder opened, and the large amount of light that came out of it blinded the gatekeeper, making her close her eyes with her hands over her face.

The next thing Meiling knew, she was rammed by the intruder with a tremendous force that pressed her against the gate, causing it to swing open and sending her flying back through the air. She fell back onto the ground with a thud and lied there unconsciously, and the intruder went over her, her hands just short of being flattened by its "legs".

The intruder crashed through the front door of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and came to a stop just short of the middle of the lobby.

As it turned out, the intruder was not a living thing, but rather, a truck. The door at the back swung open, along with the ones at the front, and various people armed with firearms and wearing leather jackets came out. They were all wearing masks that were either smiling or frowning. The designs of the masks were, to say, a bit disturbing to look at.

The last person to come out from the back of the truck was a man with somewhat messy black hair dressed in a brown trench coat. He walked in front of the truck and looked around the place with a stern and grumpy face for a few seconds before giving orders to the others to move out.

Obviously, the sound of the truck crashing into the mansion was something that wouldn't go unnoticed by the residents of the mansion. Women dressed in pajamas—fairy maids—soon came rushing into the place to see what it was that happened. Needless to say, there were shocked at the sight of the intruders before their eyes, and they came out here without bothering to change clothes.

The man in the trench coat, without a single word, took out a pistol and shot one of the fairy maids in the head, and she quickly disintegrated shortly after hitting the floor. The sight of one of them getting killed caused the other fairy maids to scream, and some ran away as a result. The braver ones, however, stretched forth their arms and fired energy projectiles from their palms at the intruders.

The masked intruders quickly ran behind the truck for safety while firing at the fairy maids. One of the intruders got shot, but he was surprised that all he got was a burning and stinging feeling, though it was still a bit painful.

"Their attacks, for the most part, aren't harmful to us," the man in the trench coat said to his men while dodging and firing at the fairy maids. "Charge forward and shoot them down! We'll show them the difference between real bullets and theirs!"

After hearing the words of their supposed leader, the masked intruders ran forward while firing their machine guns at the fairy maids, taking them out one by one. When the fairy maids realized that these intruders were not daunted or harmed by their projectiles, at least not fatally, they started to panic and flee before they were shot down too.

With most of the fairy maids out of the way, the masked intruders started running into various rooms, bringing with them not only their guns, but also bags. As they were doing so, the leader slowly walked towards the room in front of him when suddenly one of his men flew out and landed in front of him. He looked at him for a second before looking up to see a silver-haired girl dressed in light blue pajamas, and three knives were held in between her fingers in each of her hands—Sakuya Izayoi.

"You've got guts breaking into our mansion at a time like this," she said while looking at the leader with a serious expression. "How did you get past the gate guard? She does her job even when asleep and at a time like this."

"Ah, so the head maid has showed up," the man said in a voice that was considered a bit high-pitched for his age and appearance. "I was wondering when the higher ups of this place were going to show their faces. It wouldn't be fun if only the lower-ranked ones try to take things into their own matter."

"So you know that I'm the head maid?" Sakuya said while slowly approaching the man. "I take that you already have some knowledge of this place before coming here, and yet you still barge in here uninvited, even taking out some of our maids? Like I said before, you've got guts doing this."

"Of course I have guts. Every living thing has guts," the man said. "You want to try and cut me open with your knives to prove that?"

"You're going to wish that you never told me to do that," the head maid said in a threatening voice while raising the knives on her right hand in front of her face. With swift arm movement, she thrust the same hand forward to stab the man in the face, but the man moved out of the way in time at. When Sakuya did the same thing using the other hand, he managed to escape harm again by stepping aside.

The man brought up his gun to the level of the maid's face and pulled the trigger, but she quickly moved out of the way and went a bit of a distance away from him to throw knives. The man quickly jumped to the side and fired rapidly from his gun, but the maid managed to avoid all of them. When his gun was out of bullets, he instantly took out a new bullet case and reloaded his firearm in a moment's notice before firing at the knives that the maid threw at him while he was performing the previous action, shooting them out of the air.

Sakuya produced new knives seemingly out of nowhere in between her fingers and then ran toward the man while avoiding his bullets. She swung down her hand to hit him in the face with her knives when she was close, but he quickly bent back to avoid getting hit before trying to shoot her in the head. She jumped out of the way in time and then threw some of her knives at him while in the air, but they failed to hit their target.

"He's good!" she thought as she landed. "Is he a demon or a human?"

"Hmph!" The man then aimed diagonally at the air and pulled the trigger. Confused as to why he did that, Sakuya looked up, and the moment she did, she was shot in the right leg and then bent down while crying in pain. Suddenly, the chandelier hanging onto the ceiling right above her fell down on top of her.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

The impact of the chandelier instantly knocked out the maid. Despite this, the man closed in on the unconscious maid with his gun pointing at her to make sure that she was really down for the count. Thinking that it was best to make sure that his opponent was really dead, the man readied to pull the trigger, but he stopped when his men ran back into the lobby, each with their bags filled.

"We're done here, boss!" one of them said. "We've gathered as much as our bags can carry! Let's beat it before the master of this place comes!"

"Right, get back into the truck," the man said as he put his gun away, as he had changed his mind about finishing off Sakuya, thinking that it was better to leave right away. As he turned around to return to the truck, a voice called out to him, making him and his men stop to turn to the source of it.

"Stop right there," the voice said. "Leaving here without meeting the master of this place and giving her a proper greeting first?" They looked at the door Sakuya originally came out from and saw a short purple-haired girl dressed in a sleeveless night gown that matched her hair color.

"Guess we weren't quiet enough with our actions," the man said as he started moving in Remilia's direction, undaunted by the appearance of the one known as the Scarlet Devil. His men, fearing danger, quickly rushed back into the truck, but a few of them stayed behind to see if their leader needed help.

As Remilia walked toward the man, she looked at the unconscious and injured Sakuya underneath the chandelier before looking at him. "I have to applaud you for being able to best my head maid in a fight," she said. "It's not something everyone is capable of doing. She is acknowledged as one of the most skilled fighters in Gensokyo. For a normal human, you're definitely something to be able to accomplish such a feat!"

"As much as there is a limit to what humans can do, the peak of their limit is something that is not to be underestimated," the man said. "If I had no faith in coming here and then leaving alive, I would never have done so in the first place."

"My… You're very confident of yourself, eh?" Remilia said. "Now that you've broken into this place, made a mess, and stole my properties, you seriously think you can make it out of here in one piece? Your so-called confidence has very well caused the downfall of…" Before she could finish her phrase, the man pulled out something from underneath his coat and threw a large amount of powder at her face. When the young vampire breathed in the powder, she felt her nose and her lungs burn as she began coughing and sneezing uncontrollably. "What…?! What the…?! Gar… Garlic…?! Ack! Augh! Cough!"

The man then fired from his gun at the suffering Remilia over and over, each shot making her take steps back. When he was out of bullet, he gave her a kick that knocked her onto the floor before taking out a knife to plunge through her chest. While the vampire was screaming in pain, the man quickly ran back into his truck with his men.

As the vehicle was backing out of the mansion, Meiling ran toward it from behind, shouting, "You're not getting away!" However, she moved out of the way when the truck backed up at a fast speed in order to avoid getting run over. She turned to the look at the vehicle as it moved out of the mansion grounds backwards, and while she wanted to give chase, the cry of her mistress back inside told her that it was more important to save lives first, so she quickly rushed inside. "Mistress Remilia! Mistress Remilia!"

* * *

.

.

.

.

.

_TOUHOU PROJECT_

_EVIL BY NATURE_

.

.

.

.

.

**Chapter 1**  
**Approaching Incident**

* * *

**BGM: A Sacred Lot (remastered version made by Shadow00000000000001)  
**

Gensokyo…

A land unknown to civilization…

A land where things that one would pass off as myths, legends, and nonsensical were found…

Magic, demons, ghosts, cryptids, supernatural elements…

Those were some of the things that one could expect to find in Gensokyo.

Separated from civilization, Gensokyo was way behind in technological advancement, so the lifestyle of the inhabitants of this place was similar to that of the feudal era of Japan.

Despite this, modern day equipment and high-tech materials somehow made their way into this place every once in a while, so the inhabitants were not completely unaware and ignorant of what the world out there was like.

What kept this place hidden from the world outside was the Great Hakurei Barrier, a large magical barrier surrounding the place created and held up by the Hakurei Shrine and, most importantly, the latest in line of the Hakurei clan, Reimu Hakurei, the Shrine Maiden of Paradise.

**End of BGM**

* * *

It was early in the morning when the shrine maiden was already up and dressed in her usual red and white attire, one that didn't resemble the kind that people would think of if they hear the term shrine maiden.

After finishing up her breakfast consisting of a bowl of rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and kimchi, the shrine maiden leaned back with her arms supporting her while letting out a sigh. Her green-haired robotic maid, Ruukoto, came over to clean up the table while asking her mistress with a smile, "How is the meal, Mistress Reimu?"

"Like always," the shrine maiden replied.

"I'm glad you like it!" the robot happily said. "I'll continue to do my best to serve you! I'm off to work now!" Then she left with a tray containing the dining equipments in her hands.

Reimu got up and stretched a bit before walking outside her shrine to let the sun shine down on her for warmth. Nothing like the warm sun shining down on you on a beautiful day…!

While she was bending her neck and moving around her limbs to warm up for the day, she noticed an all too familiar person to her flying across the air while shouting loudly, "Big news! Scarlet Devil Mansion was assaulted and robbed during the night!"

Hearing this came as a huge surprise for Reimu, for she knew how strong the inhabitants of the mansion was. Was the tengu telling the truth? She knew well that Aya had always been known for exaggerating the truth and even spreading false information, so perhaps she was behaving like always again? What good would she gain for spreading false information like this? If this was false, and those living in the mansion heard about it, they surely wouldn't let her get away with it in one piece. Aya should know better than to get on the bad side of the Scarlet Devil.

As Reimu was wondering about this, a girl with short black hair and wearing a white shirt and a black skirt dropped down in front of her in an instant, surprising her a bit. "You heard what I said? It's big news!" the girl—Aya Shameimaru—said to her.

"You seriously think I wouldn't hear that, with you shouting that loud?" Reimu said to her. "And I didn't call for you either. Why'd you come down here?"

"Well, you're a shrine maiden, and solving incidents is what you do best, asides from slacking off when there's nothing to do," the tengu replied, "so I thought you might want to know more details about this."

"I'm sorry for slacking off when there's nothing to do, okay…?" the shrine maiden said, not sounding pleased with that part of the tengu's reply.

"Anyway, you can look at the article for free," said Aya as she took out one of the newspaper she was carrying in a bag strapped around her shoulder. "You won't believe what happened yesterday night!"

"Something tells me you're going to charge me after I look at it…" Reimu said as she took the newspaper from her and began reading the front page.

_SCARLET DEVIL MANSION ROBBED LAST NIGHT_

_At around three in the morning, an outside world transportation device called a truck broke into the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Several masked man armed with outside world weapons called guns stepped out and fought against the fairy maids, killing several of them, before running throughout the mansion to steal valuables._

_The man believed to be their leader was attacked by the head maid, Sakuya Izayoi, shortly afterwards, and despite her skill in combat, she ultimately lost to the man and was crushed underneath a chandelier. Just as the intruders were about to leave, the master of the mansion, Remilia Scarlet, came out to face the leader himself. Shockingly, the man managed to overcome Remilia using garlic powder and then stabbed her with a knife. After that, the intruders made their escape in the truck._

_Their whereabouts are currently unknown._

After finishing the article, Reimu said with look of skeptic, "Are you serious about this? You didn't make this up or exaggerate things, didn't you?"

"Hey, do you doubt the reliability of Bunbunmaru Newspaper?" asked Aya, offended at what she said. "Bunbunmaru is the most reliable and honest news press in Gensokyo! Everything that you see on our papers is definitely real and gathered firsthand! You cannot find a more honest news press anywhere here!"

"Yes, I doubt the reliability of Bunbunmaru," Reimu said with a straight face.

"Ugh… Think whatever you want… Anyway, what I said is definitely the truth. Nothing is altered at all, "Aya said.

"So you're basically admitting that you alter the truth sometimes, eh?" Reimu said when she heard the last part.

"I… I… Wha… Argh! Forget it!" Aya said in frustration. "If you don't believe me, then pay the mansion a visit! You'll be shocked by how true things are!"

"Well, only one way to find out whether or not this is true," Reimu said. "Head over to the mansion and get the words out of Scarlet Devil herself. I still find this to be unbelievable." She then turned to look at her shrine. "Ruukoto, I'll be out for a while. Take care of the shrine while I'm gone, okay?"

"Yes, Mistress Reimu!" replied the cheerful voice of the robotic maid.

* * *

Flight was without doubt a useful method of transportation, and this was something that many people in Gensokyo were capable of. Thanks to this method, Reimu and Aya were able to get to the Scarlet Devil Mansion in less than ten minutes, though the latter could have gotten there in less than a minute, had it not been intentionally moving at a pace that was slow enough for the shrine maiden to catch up with.

* * *

Due to what happened yesterday, Meiling became stricter than usual about letting people into the mansion, but seeing that it was people she knew well, she let the both of them in without much hesitation after asking what they were here for. The duo made their way through the mansion, led by a fairy maid, until they finally arrived at Remilia's room, where they saw the mistress of the mansion lying down on her bed with a purple-haired girl in a purple pajama-like dress sitting on a chair next to her.

"No surprise that you're here," Remilia said. "I was expecting you to show up sooner or later, now that news of what happened here has pretty much spread throughout the place."

"You know who to thank about that, don't you?" Aya asked.

"Not like this is something I wish to let people know… If anything, I'd prefer that this embarrassing incident be kept from everyone…" Remilia said, not sounding pleased. "I should've silenced you forever if I had the chance…"

"The world needs to know the truth, and I'm the person to get the job done," Aya told her. "Just try and catch up with me if you want to stop me!"

"All right, enough of that," Reimu asked as she walked up next to Remilia's bed. "So was everything written on the newspaper true? You really did lose to an ordinary human?"

"It's very true," Patchouli replied. This made Remilia glare at her, as if the former didn't want her to answer that question so straightforwardly. "Sorry…"

"Yeah, it's the truth…" Remilia said, not really wanting to admit things. "But then, he only won because he pulled a cheap trick. If we had a fair one-on-one fight, I would never lose to him."

"Whoever that person was, he was without doubt prepared when he came here," Patchouli said. "He knew that Sakuya is the head maid of this mansion and that Remilia is the owner. He threw garlic powder into Remilia's face and pinned her down with a silver knife."

"Silver knife?" Reimu curiously asked.

"Silver is one of the weaknesses of a vampire," Patchouli explained. "I arrived at the scene shortly after Remilia's attacker made his escape, so I was able to take out the knife before it did too much to harm to her and then treated immediately."

"Speaking of Sakuya… How is she?" Reimu asked.

"She's all right, though in a battered state," the magician replied. "Some of her bones were broken from getting hit by the chandelier, so she has to stay in bed until they're healed. It's nothing really fatal. Also, the fairy maids who were killed eventually respawned, so we didn't lose any of our household members in the end."

"That's good to hear," Reimu said. "Would be a downer if they simply got wiped out like that. That's one good thing about being a fairy… Whoever this guy is, he sure is skilled to be able to beat you guys up and then make it out alive."

"If I get my hands on him again, he's not going to get away with it so easily!" Remilia said in a voice that hinted anger.

"I'm not an expert on outside world matters, but he and his men were without doubt using outside world weapons, including the transportation device," Patchouli said. "This raises the question of where they got those from."

"Well, I have three possible theories regarding this," Aya said. "Kourindou has lots of outside world stuff there, and Yukari is known to bring back stuff from out there once in a while too. Lastly, Kanako has always been planning to modernize Gensokyo and has even created a science lab or something like that, so I'm not surprised if she has lots of outside world stuff there."

"Those sound valid enough," Reimu said. "Well, guess we'll have to pay those three a visit if we want to get to the bottom of this."

* * *

No sooner after this, Reimu and Aya left the mansion and headed over to a place known as Kourindou. It was an antique store ran by a half-human, half-demon named Rinnosuke Morichika, and if ever the inhabitants wanted to know more about or find stuff from the outside world, this was without doubt the first place to visit.

After being told by Reimu and Aya about the reason they came here for, Rinnosuke replied, "Yes, I have seen and know well what the things those people used are, and I can assure you that they are without doubt things from the outside world. However, I do not have anything like those here at all."

"Are you sure about this?" Reimu asked.

"The transportation device they used, called a truck, is simply too big to be stored around here," Rinnosuke told her. "I can keep it outside, but have you seen anything the size of that outside my store around these days? If that truck really came from here, then you should've seen it the day before or so, and the last time you visited this place was only yesterday evening. I can't possibly obtain something the size of that in a short amount of time."

"You have a point," Reimu said with a nod.

"And the weapons those people used are called guns, and it is one of the most dangerous kinds of weapons the outside world has to offer," Rinnosuke continued. "Those things fire projectiles, but unlike most of the kinds used here, they are fatal and can take lives. Knowing how dangerous those things are, I have decided to never keep those things here, in fear of them falling into wrong hands."

"But don't you have an umbrella that is capable of doing something like those weapons can do?" Aya asked.

"I wasn't aware of the fact that the umbrella is actually a weapon at first, and I need a way to defend myself too, you know," said Rinnosuke, trying to defend himself.

"So you're positively sure that none of the things those people used came from this place?" Reimu asked Rinnosuke.

"I'm very sure," the storeowner told her with a nod. "Perhaps you should ask Yukari. She knows even more about the outside world than me, and considering that she brings back stuff from the outside every once in a while, it's no surprise if this is her doing."

"Well, Yukari is known to stir up problems whenever she has too much time to kill, but I doubt she'll ever go overboard like this," Reimu said. "Anyway, we already had in mind to see her next if this place doesn't produce any answers. Still, thanks for the help."

* * *

The duo went to Mayohiga right after that. It was an abandoned town located near the border of Gensokyo, and it also served as the border of the Great Hakurei Barrier.

Reimu and Aya landed in the middle of the empty village, its only inhabitants being stray cats, other than the Yakumo, of course. "Are you sure Yukari can be found here?" Aya asked the shrine maiden.

"This is the most likely place where we can find her," Reimu said. "She doesn't really have a set location where she hangs out, but this is usually the first place to start looking at if you want to find her. Let's hope she's here… Let's start off with that house over there. It looks the biggest here, and it's likely that she'll choose a large and comfortable-looking one to stay in."

They approached the house, and Reimu knocked on the door. They were met with quite a while of silence, and Aya eventually said, "I don't think anyone is in there… Why don't we just…?" Before she could finish speaking, the door opened, and a blond woman with nine fox tails was seen standing there. "Oh, so there is someone here."

"It's the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine and the news reporter," the woman—Ran Yakumo—said. "What brings the two of you here?"

"Is Yukari in there?" Reimu asked.

"She is currently in a deep slumber," the nine-tailed fox demon replied. "She has been asleep since two days ago, and chances are likely that she won't be up for a while."

"What has she been up to that she needs to sleep this long?" Reimu asked. "She hasn't been up to anything, hasn't she?"

"I don't think she's been up to anything lately," Ran said. "She simply got bored and couldn't think of anything to do, so she decided to take a nice, long nap, as she puts it. By the way, let me guess what you're here for… It's about the news about the Scarlet Devil Mansion being invaded by people with weapons from the outside world, right?"

"Clever as always, I see," Aya said.

"If you are here to ask if Yukari has anything to do with this, then I can assure you that this has absolutely nothing to do with her," Ran told them. "She hasn't visited the outside world for a while already, and there is no reason for her to bring in anything that could potentially harm Gensokyo either. Why would she bring in such dangerous people when it is her duty to keep Gensokyo safe from the outside world? As much as she likes stir up incidents for fun at times, she would never cross the line. She knows her limits."

"Well, you said everything I wanted to bring up…" Reimu said. "Okay, so I guess there's only one more place to look at now… Thanks for the answers."

* * *

With Kourindou and Mayohiga visited, the only place left for them to look into was the Moriya Shrine, located on top of Youkai Mountain. Once there, they immediately confronted the goddess of the shrine, Kanako Yasaka, and asked her same thing they asked Rinnosuke.

"I figured that you may be coming over here to ask me about this," Kanako said after being asked that question.

"So do you have any idea on how those people got their hands on the outside world stuff?" Aya asked the goddess. "Do you have anything to do with this?"

"The department of science that I opened has several high-tech equipments, but most of them started off as raw materials that were eventually developed into practical equipments by the kappas, Rika, and Rikako," Kanako replied. "However, I can assure you that the truck and the guns those people used do not come from there. The only vehicles we have are military vehicles made by Rika. Rika also uses guns as one of her methods of self-defense, since she cannot fire projectiles by herself. If those guns were stolen from her lab, she would've made reports of it already."

"Okay… Now that we have asked all three places and got negative answers, that really leaves us in the dark as to where those people got them from…" Reimu said.

"The only plausible answer now is that they brought them along from the outside world," Kanako said. "People occasionally wander into Gensokyo after all."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but to think that they would bring stuff like those along with them… This is new…" the shrine maiden said. "Anyway, thanks for answering our question. As the shrine maiden responsible for keeping Gensokyo safe, I'll have to look into this more, as much as I find it tiring…"

"You can always give that task to us if you get tired of it," Kanako told her. "We'll gladly look after Gensokyo for you!"

"And let you take all the attention from me? Yeah right…" Reimu said.

"It's not like your shrine attracts any attention or donation in the first place," Aya reminded her, and the shrine maiden responded with a frustrated glare, though she knew the tengu was correct about that.

* * *

Marisa Kirisame, the Ordinary Black Magician, was strolling down the streets of the Human Village, the safest place for ordinary humans of Gensokyo to live in, minding her own business while humming her theme song, Love-Colored Master Spark, to pass time.

As she walked down the streets, she overheard passersby talking about the incident that happened at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She was surprised to hear such a thing, but then she remembered that the news report was done by Aya, so chances were likely things weren't as bad as she made them to be. After all, the residents of the mansion were no pushovers, so how bad could things possibly be?

Since she visited the mansion's library often to "borrow" books, she thought it would be better if she paid the librarian there, Patchouli Knowledge, a visit and ask if everything was all right. She then noticed a particular shop selling magic-related merchandises down the street, and thinking that it would be rude to pay one a visit after such an incident without buying any gifts, she decided to stop by there to see if there was anything worth spending a few bucks on.

When she walked into the shop, she noticed was a woman with red hair that was tied into a ponytail dressed in a purple kimono, a few men dressed in "feudal policemen outfits", a long-haired blond girl dressed in red and white, and a white cat sitting on the counter. The girl was in tears, while the red-haired woman and the men with her were asking her questions.

"Um… I'm sorry if I'm disturbing the lot of you…" Marisa asked. "What happened here?"

Everyone turned to look at her, and the red-haired woman—Kotohime—said to her, "Well, it's the thieving witch. You here to borrow stuff for a lifetime?"

"Calling people a thief is sooooo fun, right?" said Marisa, sounding offended. "I told you that I will definitely return the things I borrowed! You just have to be patient! Plus, I never borrow anything from here. This is a legitimate store, so I'd definitely pay before taking anything from here! You can ask Ellen to clarify this!"

The blond storeowner, Ellen, nodded, still with tears in the corner of her eyes. "Yes… She never stole anything from me… She would always pay… after bargaining with me for lower prices…"

"See? Told ya!" Marisa said to Kotohime.

"That better be the case, because I have every right to arrest you if you take things from here without paying," Kotohime told her. "Anyway, there's been a robbery here, and please tell me that you have absolutely nothing to do with this."

"You still doubt me, don't you?" Marisa asked. "Geez! What kind of a cop are you? Cops are supposed to protect innocent people and believe what they say!"

"True, but it's hard to believe someone who has records of 'borrowing' books and other stuff for a lifetime," Kotohime said. "Anyway, like I said earlier, there's been a robbery here. Ellen woke up and found several of her merchandises missing from the shelves, so she quickly notified us."

"That's bad to hear," Marisa said. "So you managed to find out anything?"

Kotohime shook her head. "Ellen had no idea who came in and took them, so we can only conclude that this happened during the night. The things that were stolen mainly consisted of anti-magic materials."

"Anti-magic materials?" Marisa curiously said.

"They are objects that are capable of nullifying magic for a limited amount of time," Ellen explained. "This makes them useful for facing those with magical powers, as it renders them unable to use their abilities. They can also be used to cancel magical properties of objects and erase barriers, assuming they aren't too powerful, like the Great Hakurei Barrier."

"Never knew you sold those kinds of things…" Marisa said. "I was thinking… I heard people talking about how the Scarlet Devil Mansion got robbed. Do you think it's possible that the people who stole from this place are the same as the ones who robbed that place?"

"That's a possibility I was thinking of too," Kotohime said. "The robbery at the mansion happened around three in the morning, and since the distance from here to there shouldn't take more than an hour, it's highly possible that they robbed two places in the same night. Still, we need evidence on this first."

"Well, since you're busy with work, I guess I'll take my leave…" Marisa said before leaving the store. "Guess it's not really a time for shopping… Maybe I'll just return the books I took from Patchouli… Yeah, that should be a good compensation for having stuff stolen… Better than spending money on… I don't even know what to buy…"

The witch then got onto her broom and took off into the air, heading in the direction of the Forest of Magic, where her house was located.

* * *

For the rest of the day, the inhabitants of Gensokyo spent their daily lives normally. Nothing unusual happened at all for the rest of the day, but little did they know that what might be the worst incident that Gensokyo would be facing was going to happen soon…

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Much like how I have a Super Smash Bros. story series, I am going to start a brand new Touhou series. Please note that this story does not exist in the same timeline as the rest of my Touhou stories and does not exist in the same universe as my SSB series as well. It takes place in its own continuity. All my Touhou stories from now on will take place in this continuity, unless stated otherwise or if they exist in the same universe as my SSB series.

As you can see, PC-98 characters will be featured heavily. It is as if they have always existed alongside the Windows characters.

I plan to portray the characters as closely as possible to their canon portrayals, but I will also throw in a bit of my own fanon portrayals. While this fan fiction has no pictures, I like to imagine that some of the characters are designed a bit differently from their official appearances, be it clothing or hairstyle. I will describe such characters with more detail than usual.

And if you want to imagine how the voice of the robbers' leader sounds like, just imagine the Joker's voice from the movie The Dark Knight. Yeah, something like that…


	2. Disastrous Fair

**Chapter 2**  
**Disastrous Fair**

* * *

Night had cometh on the same day the news report about what happened at the Scarlet Devil Mansion went out. Reimu was seated on the shrine's veranda, drinking tea and watching the stars in the sky while thinking about the things that happened to the mansion and what she did during the day, about how she went to investigate this matter, only to find nothing in the end.

Behind her and within the shrine, a dual-horned girl with light brown hair—Suika Ibuki—was seen drunk and asleep on the tatami with a gourd containing alcohol next to her. Her snoring was a bit a loud, but it wasn't enough to disturb Reimu. The latter's shrine was quite a bit of a distance from the other residents, so nobody was disturbed.

While she was thinking about all these, an elderly turtle with a long, white beard floated over to her and rested on the part of the veranda next to her. The turtle said to her, "What is bothering you, Miss Reimu? Is it regarding the matter during the daytime?"

"What else do you think I'm worried about? Asides from not getting donations…" she said without turning to look at the turtle. "Having encountered several kinds of incidents in the past, I know for sure that one is arising very soon."

"Whatever the incident is, it is nothing that you cannot resolve," the turtle—Genji—told her. "Resolving incidents is one of your talents. You have accomplished well and beaten the odds to win in the past, and at times, you also have friends helping you out, so I am very sure that this incident, whatever it may be, will be no different. I have complete faith in you that you will without doubt resolve it and also find the people responsible for this! Believe in yourself and your friends!"

"Yeah, I know it's going to be like always. I'm going to resolve this incident no matter what," Reimu said. "Just hope it won't be too hard…"

Just then, Marisa landed in front of the shrine maiden on her broom. "Hey there, Reimu!" she said to her as she got off her broom and adjusted her hat. "How are things?"

"What business do you have here at a time like this?" Reimu said to her.

"Just decided to drop by and chat with you a little bit," Marisa said as she went up to the veranda and sat down next to her. "So… what's on your mind?"

"I was talking to Miss Reimu just now about how I have faith in her solving this newest incident," Genji told her. "I also told her that she has friends who are capable of lending her hands in times like this."

"Oh, I would be one of those friends, right?" Marisa said. "Of course it's me! I'm almost always on your side when you're resolving major incidents! We managed to pull through lots of problems together-ze! I'm sure we'll be able to pull through this together too without a problem, right?"

"Yeah," Reimu said with a slight nod.

"Speaking of which, have you looked into this matter and find out anything yet?" Marisa asked the shrine maiden. "And by the way, I also visited the mansion and returned Patchouli her books."

Reimu looked at with a slightly surprised expression and said, "That's unheard of! You would never return anything you borrowed until the end of your life! What's with doing that all of a sudden?"

"I just feel like I should do something to… comfort… if that's a good term… Anyway, I thought it would be better that after what happened there, I should return her the books I borrowed. They lost some stuff during the robbery, so it's best to return some stuff to them, even if those books weren't the ones stolen," Marisa explained. "Patchouli herself was surprised by my actions as well, and I gave her the same explanation I gave you."

"Hope you would do that often, especially to Alice," Reimu said. "God knows how many of her books you have borrowed and never returned."

"Maybe if something like that happens to her, I'll consider returning them early," Marisa said. "So back to my question…"

"I visited Rinnosuke, Yukari, and Kanako to ask them about this, considering that those people have access to outside world stuff," Reimu told her, "but they deny knowing anything. Well, Yukari was sleeping when I visited her, so I ended up talking to Ran instead."

"Yukari is sleeping? Why do I have the feeling that she may be hiding something by doing that?" Marisa asked.

"I don't know," Reimu said. "Ran kept on defending her mistress. Yukari may not be a saint when it comes to interacting with the people here, but she wouldn't fall as low as to allow danger to befall anyone in Gensokyo, so I don't think it has anything to do with her."

"Yeah, you have a point…" Marisa said. "Oh, one more thing… Ellen's shop got robbed, and I'm thinking that this is connected to the robbery that happened at the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

"Yeah, Aya and I heard about it during our investigation," the shrine maiden said. "We were wondering the same thing too, but we need more proof of it. Anyway, I'm glad that nothing bad happened today, and I sure do hope it doesn't happen tomorrow too."

"But that would you mean never being able to get to the bottom of this incident," Marisa told her.

"If it never happens, then that's for the best of everyone," Reimu said before sipping her tea.

"Oh, one more thing," Marisa said. "Do you know that the Myouren Temple is going to have a fun fair to promote relationship between humans and demons tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Reimu said. "I doubt it can really make a big improvement, though. Humans' general view toward demons and demons' nature of craving human flesh make it so that both sides can never really have a good relationship."

"That's true, but at least not all of them are like that," Marisa said. "We have some friends who are demons, and some of them have no problem getting along with humans after all. Trying is better than not trying. At least they can get a small group of humans to realize that not all demons are what they think and the other way round-ze!"

"Whatever… I have no interest in going there," Reimu said before taking another sip. "By the way, something tells me that the main reason you're here is because you are afraid of getting robbed by those people from last night, so you're here to spend a night with me for safety."

"Hey! What are you talking about?! Why should I be scared of some people wearing masks and equipped with outside world weapons?!" said the surprised and offended witch. "It doesn't matter how powerful their weapons are, my Master Spark is going to blow them to kingdom come! I'm not scared about them that I have to come and spend a night here! Geez! Way to go on jumping to conclusions! Anyway, I'm leaving now. I'll show you that I have no fear of them coming over to my place at all! Furthermore, it's more dangerous if I'm not home, because nobody will be able to defend it!" With that, Marisa stood up, got onto her broom, and then took off into the night sky.

As Genji watched the witch leave, he said to Reimu, "Don't you think that you're a bit too harsh saying that to her?"

"Nah, she gets over people getting on her bad side pretty quickly," Reimu told him. "She's going to forget about it sooner or later, though I know if nothing really happens to her during the night, she's going to boast to me about how she made it through the night fearlessly and safely tomorrow. Not saying that I'm hoping for something to happen to her, mind you…"

"Of course, I know that," Genji said. "Even though you're not the kind of person to show it on your face or say it, you do care about your friends and the people of Gensokyo."

* * *

The next morning, a crowd was gathered outside the Myouren Temple. As Marisa said last night, a fun fair was held in that place for the purpose of trying to strengthen relationship between humans and demons.

Various food, game, and shopping stands were set up, some operated by humans and some by demons. There was also a stage set up in front of the temple, with the Prismriver Sisters on top of it performing music to keep the atmosphere lively.

Amidst the crowd, a girl with twin ponytails was walking around while taking pictures with her cell phone's camera. "Aya is so going to be surprised that I'm going to be first person publishing everything here!" said the girl—Hatate Himekaidou. "No way am I going to live in her shadow forever! About time I step in front of her and gather news and information firsthand! Heehee!"

Though little did she know that Aya was also present at the fun fair, boasting about how she was going to once again beat Hatate in gathering news and information firsthand and how Kakashi Spirit News would never become better than Bunbunmaru News.

While the activities went on and everyone enjoyed the food and games, the one who started the idea of this fun fair and the head of the Myouren Temple, Byakuren Hijiri approached the crowd and looked at everyone with a smile on her face. Standing next to her was one of her disciples, Shou Toramaru.

"I'm glad that everyone is enjoying this fun fair!" Byakuren happily said. "Looks like it is a great idea after all!"

"It sure is, Mistress Hijiri!" Shou said to her with a nod.

"I hope that by doing this, relationship between humans and demons will become better!" Byakuren said. "Both sides will finally be able to know that their views of each other had always been wrong! Both sides may have their flaws, but as long as one is willing to put behind their negative images and show each other their positive selves, they will surely be able to get along!"

"For your sake, I hope it really will be like that," Shou said. "Still, something tells me it won't be that easy… Even though we agreed on holding this fun fair, not every one of us is very fond of this idea. You know that some of our disciples have issues with humans and do not like them."

"I cannot blame them for thinking such things," Byakuren said. "However, if it wasn't because for the reason that they want to know humans better and form better relationships with them, they wouldn't have come to our temple and become our disciples in the first place. The fact that they came here means they are willing to change their views toward humans!"

"Let's hope that really is the case…" Shou said.

* * *

"Congratulations, little girl!" said the owner of a game that involved throwing rings onto various kinds of prizes as he handed over a doll to a blond girl dressed in a black and red dress who, strangely enough, had doll joints connecting the different segments of her arms and fingers together. "Hope you like your prize!

The girl took the doll and then walked away without saying anything. Looking at the doll while stroking its hair, the girl—Medicine Melancholy—said, "Placed there as a prize for people to win… What if nobody wins you? What will become of you? Will you be thrown away like old and unwanted dolls? It hurts me to think that people throw away dolls for reasons like that… Such is the unfortunate fate of all toys…

"Humans… They only think of wanting new things, and once they get them, they throw away the old things without much of a second thought. The memories that they had with them as they grew up… All those memories… Down the drain they go once the replacement comes… You might very well encounter such a fate if I had not rescued you. I, too, was abandoned when my owner no longer wanted me… I know very well what it feels to be abandoned and thrown away, never to be picked up by anyone again… It really hurts me and saddens me…"

As she continued to stroke the doll's hair, she said, "I will show those people… I will definitely show them the consequences of throwing away unwanted dolls… We dolls will surely rule over human and every other living thing… I will liberate us all from the curse of unwanted dolls…"

Some passersby looked at her strangely as she spoke to the doll, or she might be speaking to herself. They didn't give much thought and continued on their way. As Medicine continue to stroke the doll's hair, a group of people wearing leather coats and masks walked past behind her.

At the same time, Byakuren and Shou stepped onto the stage that the Prismriver Sisters were performing. The former's appearance on the stage caused some people to turn their attention to her, and then she said out loud, "Everyone! Welcome to the Human-Demon Bonding Fair! I hope that you all are enjoying this fun fair!"

"Human-Demon Bonding Fair?" Shou said in her head upon hearing that name. "At least it states the purpose of this fun fair…"

"The purpose of this fun fair is to strengthen the relationship between humans and demons," Byakuren told everyone. "The fact that all you humans, demons, and other kinds of species are interacting with each other happily means that you do not see each other as threats! For a long time, it has always been a misunderstanding that all demons are threats to humans and humans despise demons. Such is not always the case! As you have witnessed with your own eyes and experienced things firsthand, both sides are indeed capable of getting along with each other!

"It has always been my dream to strengthen the bond between all species! We are all living things, so we should show love to one another! We may not be the same species and may look different, but we all live, breathe, and talk! These are qualities that allow us to connect with each other, so why is there a need to feel enmity toward each other? This fun fair has proven that it is possible for us all to coexist with each other in harmony! I know that not all of you are going to agree with me right away, but I'm sure that as time goes by, you will be able agree with me! Make friends with different species! Get to know each other better! What a wonderful world it would be if we can all coexist in peace!"

Her speech struck everyone as powerful and convincing, and everyone, as far as Byakuren could see, raised his or her arms into the air and cheered loudly, agreeing with what she said. The magician was glad that everyone agreed with her, and Shou was surprised that she actually managed to get everyone, or at least a large amount of them, to agree with her. As long as her master was happy, she was also happy.

Suddenly, a loud sound similar to an explosion shocked everyone. Everyone immediately backed away from the source of the sound and looked at it. Standing in the center of the clearing created from everyone moving back was the group of people wearing leather coats and masks, and the person who made the sound by firing his shotgun into the air was the only one not wearing a mask. "Very nice speech! I sure am touched by this!" he said.

The man climbed onto the top of the stage and stood next to Byakuren, while his men stayed at the bottom and in front of it. Turning to the crowd, the man said loudly, "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I figured that you might be bored and want some entertainment, so we will be here to entertain you."

"Hey! Who are you people?! How can you come up here without permission?!" Shou said in anger to the man.

Byakuren calmed her down and then said to the man, "Sir, I see that you would like to display your talents to the people. It is a good thing that you are concerned if the people are feeling bored and not, and I appreciate your actions. I apologize to you that my follower was a bit too rude to you just now, but she does have a point. It would be nice if you asked before coming up here."

"Well, there is no place to register nor does there seem to be anyone I should be asking first," the man said. "How can you blame me for coming up here without asking first, then?"

"Well, you can…" Byakuren said, but the man interrupted her.

"You made a nice speech, but there are some things that I think I really should speak out," the man said, and then he turned to the crowd. "All right, listen up! In case you people haven't figured it out yet, we were the ones who broke into the place known as the Scarlet Devil Mansion yesterday night!"

What he said surprised everyone, and talks of those people filled the air. Aya forced her way to the front of the crowd and took pictures nonstop. "Whoa! So those are the people who robbed the mansion and defeated Remilia?!" she said. "I can't believe I'm looking at them now! How bold of them to show up in daylight and in front of so many people too!"

"You see," the man said, causing everyone to become silent, "this world has some fixed laws for all living things. You know, fishes gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and cows gotta eat grass. The fact that humans and demons cannot coexist in peace is only natural, as it is the nature of demons to consume human flesh and bring them trouble! I'm not saying that it's impossible for both species to coexist in peace, but what I want to say is… What's the point? Demons are born to eat human flesh and bring misfortune to them! They are made to bring chaos and destruction! What is a demon that doesn't do any of those?"

Everyone talked with other about this upon hearing what the man said.

"If there is something about you that you are born with, why go against it?" the man continued. "Shouldn't you put more effort into doing that? Can you persuade a bird to not fly? Can you tell a fish to stop swimming and walk on dry ground instead? Try telling a lion to stop eating meat and eat vegetables instead! Yeah, I dare you! It's natural for humans and demons to dislike each other, so why change that? If that is the way of nature, then let it be! In the same way, humans are evil by nature! Everyone is born with the instinct of doing things that only satisfy his or herself! Leave a child untrained, and he will grow up to do things that are unethical. Much like how demons should devour humans and cause trouble, humans should commit crimes and do all sorts of unethical things, because being sinful is the nature they are born with!"

The crowd talked among each other about this. Byakuren wasn't pleased to hear what the man said, but she held back her discontentment and said to the man with a smile, "It may be true that all living things are born with certain natures and instincts. Indeed, birds have to fly and fishes have to swim. Demons indeed have the nature of devouring humans, and it is true that humans are evil by nature as well. However, their natures differ from birds and fishes in the way that those are not elements necessary for their life. Birds are creatures of the air that must rely on flight in order to survive, as their bodies are not made to face the hardships of the ground, and fishes must swim, as they are not born with bodily functions that allow them to survive on land.

"The natures of demons and humans, on the other hand, are not necessities that will bring them burden if they do not perform them. In fact, their natures are considered unethical and immoral to the eyes of most people. Therefore, I see a reason for humans and demons to change from their sinful natures and adopt a more ethical way of living, not to mention coexisting with each other in peace and harmony."

"I can tell that you know a lot about human nature and such," the man said to her. "Unfortunately, our opinions differ, and I am not the kind of person who accepts differences in opinions! People who insist to think differently from me never get out of it so easily!"

Sensing danger, Shou said in a threatening voice to the man, "If you dare lay a finger on Master Hijiri, I will not let you get out of it so easily!"

"You don't have to get so agitated, Shou," Byakuren said to her. "Violence is not a way to resolve things."

"That's what they always say," the man said. "However, humans are evil by nature, so it's only natural that they resort to using violence to resolve things. Why stop yourself from using such a method when it is in your nature to do so?"

"Sir, I can tell that you have some sort of a troubled past that you think like that," Byakuren said to him. "Would you like to come into the temple and speak with me privately about your past? I can try to help you and give you guidance."

"The last thing I need is a psychologist giving me dumb and useless advices!" the man rudely said to her.

"How dare you?!" Shou angrily said. By this time, Byakuren's other disciples—Nazrin, Ichirin, and Minamitsu—had come onto the stage and glare at the man angrily, and they were ready to go for the offense if they had to.

"You better watch your language in front of our master," Ichirin said. "We won't tolerate you speaking to her with such an unclean tongue!"

"Master, we should have them all captured right now!" Minamitsu said to Byakuren. "They are wanted due to what they did to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Now that they're in front of our eyes and planning to cause trouble, what other chance is there for us to arrest him? We should put an end to their villainy at once!"

Even though Byakuren agreed with Minamitsu and was also starting to become fed up with the man's attitude, the magician continued to keep her composure. "As you can see, you and your men are in a grim situation now. After the report of what you've done went out, we have every reason to arrest you. However, as I believe in showing mercy and giving people chances to redeem themselves, I am willing to talk to the police department to not make harsh the punishment you may receive if you are willing to turn from your ways."

"Turning from my ways? Ha!" the man said. "How about this instead? Do you want to see a magic trick? Do you want to see me make a person's head disappear?" Without a warning, he raised his shotgun at Minamitsu's head and pulled the trigger, completely blowing it, along with the neck, off the body. Instead of blood and pieces of flesh flying all over the place, however, drops of water splashed all over the place.

Despite this unusual sight, it was still enough to horrify the onlookers, and screams filled the air as everyone started to run for his or her lives. The masked men started to fire from their machine guns at the scattering crowd, shooting down some of them from behind. Horrified by the sight of people and demons alike getting shot, Byakuren shouted at the masked men, "STOP! STOP IT AT ONCE!"

"Darn it! Those people have gone too far!" Nazrin angrily said. "That does it! If words won't make them listen, we'll use force!"

"As much as Master Hijiri does not like the usage of violence, I agree that there's no choice now!" Ichirin said. Both the demons, along with the latter's Nyuudou companion, quickly jumped to the bottom of the stage and started beating up the masked men who were firing at the escaping crowd.

Minamitsu's head reappeared when water came up from where the neck used to be and molded itself into the shape of one. "How dare you do that me?! You'll pay!" the ship ghost angrily said before jumping at the man and swung down her anchor, but he quickly jumped back.

"Of course, you're a ghost, so a blast to the head definitely won't do anything to you," said the man, not looking surprised at all, "and that is why I prepared this!" He pulled out a short chain from underneath his trench coat and flung it at the ship ghost. The chain glowed with golden light when it was close to Minamitsu and lengthened, binding itself around the ship ghost and causing her to fall over.

"Hey! What's this?!" she cried as she struggled to free herself, but to no avail.

"It's a special kind of chain used for binding spirits temporarily. I stole it from the magic shop at the village," the man explained. "I studied well the kinds of opponents I would face before coming here."

"Why you?! Let go of Minamitsu at once!" Shou shouted as she ran forward to stab the man with her spear, but the man stepped to the side and disarmed her by pulling away the spear. He then punched her across the face and kicked her in the guts before pointing his shotgun at her, but Byakuren quickly struck him in the hand from above and made him fire at the floor instead.

"This is as far as you go!" Byakuren said to him in an angry voice. "I do not like to use violence nor do I like to get angry, but you leave me with no choice! I will not let you harm my disciples or anyone else any longer!" She whipped out a scroll in an instant and unrolled it. Rainbow-colored light come out from it and was then "absorbed" into Byakuren's body.

While this was happening, however, the man quickly struck her in the abdomen with his hand, and the light that the scroll gave out suddenly faded. Byakuren looked at her hands and the scroll in surprise and said, "What happened?! How come my strength didn't increase?!"

The man suddenly grabbed Byakuren by the hair and slammed her face against his knee before flinging her off the stage and onto the ground, a sight that horrified and angered her disciples greatly. "How dare you?!" shouted Nazrin, but failing to focus on her enemies proved to be a fatal mistake for her, as one of the masked men shot her multiple times from behind with his machine gun. "AH!"

"Nazrin!" Shou cried out in horror.

"How dare hurt my comrade?!" Ichirin shouted as she ran up to the man who shot Nazrin and punched him across the face really hard. In fact, she punched him so hard that he flew away quite a bit of a distance. Another one of the masked men tried to hit Ichirin from behind with the back of his machine gun, but the demon swiftly moved to the side and then punched him in the waist, followed by punching him in the body multiple times. She gave him the final blow to the face and shattered his mask in a single hit.

SMAAAAAAAAASH!

She then turned to her Nyuudou companion and said to him, "Unzan! Get that man who hurt Master Hijiri at once!"

The cloud-like being nodded before flying over to the man, and he raised his massive fist over him to get ready to crush him. The man, however, was not daunted at all. He simply took out another chain and threw it at Unzan, and the Nyuudou quickly found himself bounded tightly, just like Minamitsu. "What the?!" Ichirin said in shock. "Unzan!"

"You fiend!" Shou shouted as she held up a miniature pagoda. She fired a beam from the pagoda, but the man swiftly dodged it and then charged at Shou to punch her in the abdomen before snatching away the pagoda. "Ugh!"

"You have a spear and you don't know how to use it! In fact, you don't fight or behave like a tiger demon! You are a shame to your own species!" the man said to her. "I'll be keeping this! I heard that this is capable of producing treasure. Becoming rich is not what I crave for, but my men would surely enjoy having something like this, so I'm taking it."

As he walked away, Shou got up and reached out to him, "Wait… My pagoda… Don't take it…"

The man told his men that they should be leaving. Suddenly, he was told to stop by someone, and then he turned around to see the Prismriver Sisters standing there. "Either you don't care about us or you never realized that we are here the whole time and saw everything," the eldest of the sisters, Lunasa, said.

"You seriously think we're going to let you get away with this so easily?" the youngest sister, Lyrica said.

"So you like to play dangerous magic tricks? We'll show you danger, then!" the second sister, Merlin, said.

The man raised his shotgun and was going to point it at them when someone said to him from behind, "Hey you! Now that I'm done helping the people evacuate, it's time that I…" He didn't bother to let the person finish speaking nor did he bother to turn around; he simply pointed his gun to the back and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

"GYAAAAAAAA!" screamed a horrified Aya as the shotgun blasted a hole on her body. The tengu fell back onto the ground and rolled around while crying in agony.

Horrified, Lunasa and Lyrica quickly rushed over to the tengu to see if they could help her. The villains quickly used this opportunity to make a run for their truck, which wasn't parked too far away, but Merlin quickly flew in front of them and blew her trumpet as loud as she could to release a sound wave that sent them flying back.

The man growled in anger as he held up Shou's pagoda while still seated, and it fired a beam at Merlin, blasting her back through the air.

BAAAAAAAAANG!

The poltergeist screamed as she hit the ground and then lied there charred and motionlessly. Her sisters screamed her name in horror and then quickly flew in her direction, but the man turned to them and fired from the pagoda. They managed to get out of the way, however.

After that, the man and his subordinates quickly ran for the truck, got into it, and drove away. The two poltergeist sisters rushed to their unconscious sister to help her, while Ichirin and Shou ran after the truck, but they stopped when the vehicle went too far into the distance.

* * *

News of what happened quickly spread throughout most of Gensokyo, courtesy of all those who managed to evacuate to safety. Everyone was shocked to hear that quite a number of people had lost their lives, and some of those who were lucky enough to escape the jaws of death were injured. This was the first time the doctors of Gensokyo found themselves really needed.

As some of the victims were badly injured and in a dire situation, some emergency procedures and operations were done on spot, at the location of the fun fair.

Eirin Yagokoro, the Lunarian doctor of Eientei, was busy giving out orders to the doctors, nurses, and her assistants. "Bring anyone who is gravely injured to me!" she said out loud. "The rest of you can deal with those who have more minor injuries! Take them back to your working places if you see the need for it! Make sure to act fast!"

As she was giving out orders, two rabbit demons, in their human forms, came over to Eirin with Aya using a stretcher. "Help me… Eirin…" the pained and crying tengu said. "I… I don't… want to die… yet… It… It hurts… a lot…"

"Don't worry," Eirin said to her. "Nobody's dying on my watch! You should be lucky that you're a tengu. This gave you a better chance at survival. All right, I'll treat you at once!" The doctor then led the rabbit demons into a tent that was set up for the purpose of operating on patients.

While the doctors and nurses were busy with helping victims, the police were at the scene to investigate things. They talked with the people who witnessed everything and managed to survive the onslaught to gather as much information as they could.

"This is the picture of the person in question," said Hatate, showing Kotohime the picture of the leader that she took using her cell phone.

Kotohime took the cell phone from her and inspected the picture. "So this is the guy? Never seen him around here before… I've seen pictures of how clothing in the outside world look like, and he's definitely wearing clothes from there… I guess he's probably an outsider, or maybe he got those clothes from Kourindou or somewhere… Anyway, with this picture, we can post wanted pictures of him and get the people help find and capture him. Thank you for your cooperation!"

"I'm glad to be of help!" Hatate said. She was glad that she was finally able to beat Aya in giving away information first for once, but at the same time, she felt guilty that it had to be in this kind of method. She only won because Aya was in a state of emergency.

As Kotohime was still looking at the picture, Reimu and Marisa arrived at the scene using flight. The former looked around the place and said, "Man… What a mess… I don't think I've ever seen such a scene in Gensokyo before…"

"The people who did this sure showed no mercy…" Marisa said. "Good thing I didn't attend this fair…"

"You're here at the right time," Kotohime said to Reimu. "Since protecting Gensokyo is a duty of yours, you better have a good look at the man responsible for this." Then she showed Reimu the picture of the man. "We're going to pass out wanted posters of him, and I would appreciate it if you are willing to lend us a hand in capturing him and his crew."

"So this is the guy responsible for robbing the Scarlet Devil Mansion and then causing trouble here?" Reimu said. "Knowing what he looks like is a good start. Hope he's not hiding in a well hidden place…"

Reimu then walked away to look around the place more, while Marisa looked at the picture on the cell phone. The former noticed the Byakuren and some of her disciples in front of the stage, so she approached them. "Things really didn't go well today, didn't it?" Reimu asked.

"It's really horrible…" Kyouko said with tears in the corner of her eyes. "I have never witnessed or experienced such a horrible incident in my life… Lots of people were killed… Blood was everywhere…"

"We weren't able to stop them…" Shou said in a sad tone. "I wasn't able to stop anyone… I tried to fight their leader, but he defeated me with no effort at all… He's right… I can't use my spear… I have always been using it as a decoration and a walking stick… Tigers are supposed to be strong and powerful, but I… I… I'm such a useless weakling… He even stole my pagoda with no effort…" The more Shou talked about this, the more she started to cry.

"It's all right…" Byakuren said to her. "You tried your best… You do not have to blame yourself… It's quite natural to lose to enemies you are not familiar with… Learn from your mistakes, and you will be able to succeed next time…"

Reimu noticed that Byakuren was on her knees, looking rather weak, so she asked her, "Are you feeling all right? You look under the weather…"

"I believe it's this…" said Byakuren, looking at what appeared to be an amulet placed on her abdomen. "He must've stuck this onto me when I wanted to power myself up using magic, and it prevented that from happening. I've been feeling weak since then… It must be an amulet that seals away magical powers… Being a magician, magic is very important to me… I can't take it off too, and touching it causes me to get zapped too…"

Reimu inspected the amulet and said, "Yep, it's a magic-nullifying amulet. Obviously, those with magical powers cannot remove it without getting hurt, as it would lower its usefulness. I can take it out for you." She grabbed the amulet by its corner and, with a strong yank, pulled it off Byakuren's body, and the latter was able to stand back up.

"Thank you very much! Strength has returned to me now!" the magician said to the shrine maiden with a smile.

"You're welcome," Reimu said, and then she heard someone calling her. She turned to the source and saw Minamitsu, still bounded by the chain and lying on the ground. Unzan was lying not too far from her in the same predicament.

"Mind getting this off me too?" Minamitsu said to her.

Reimu walked up to her and inspected the chain. "A ghost-binding chain, I see… Where did that guy get all these? Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about this chain, as they are designed to wear off by themselves."

"How long is it going to take?" the ship ghost asked her.

"Judging from the spiritual power I am sensing from this chain, it'll probably take a few more hours before it loosens itself," Reimu replied.

"A few more hours? Oh well, better than years…" said Minamitsu. "At least it doesn't hurt being bounded like this…"

Reimu stood up and sighed before saying, "I didn't think that things would become like this… Looks like these people are more dangerous than I thought… I really can't leave them alone anymore…"

Kotohime, Hatate, and Marisa walked up to Reimu, and the former said to her, "Hatate also recorded a video of those people's leader when he got onto the stage and made his speech. I believe we can learn some things about him if we view it."

"I'll get Nitori to bring us a projectile," Hatate said. "That way, more people can see it with ease and not crowd together in front of the cell phone."

"Okay, just do whatever you think feels best," Reimu said. "I know very little about high-tech stuff from the outside world and whatever the kappas are making after all…"

* * *

Reimu, Marisa, Kotohime, Hatate, and some policemen were at the sole police station of Gensokyo. They were all seated patiently in front of a white piece of cloth hanging down in front of the wall, waiting for a certain girl to finish connecting Hatate's cell phone to a projector via a cable.

The girl had blue hair tied into twin ponytails, wore a blue hat, and had a pair of goggles worn over her forehead. She was dressed in a blue shirt that had its sleeves rolled past her elbows, and her trousers were the same color. She also wore brown gloves. It was a getup fitting for an engineer.

After about a minute of tinkering with the projector and the cell phone, the girl—Nitori Kawashiro—turned to the audience and said, "Sorry to keep you waiting. It's done!"

"Please go ahead and play it," Kotohime told her.

"Okay," Nitori said as she pressed a button on top of the projector to make it project whatever was currently on the cell phone's screen onto the white piece of cloth. She searched for the video and then played it for everyone to see.

They sat through the entire footage of the man getting onto the stage and giving his speech about how all living things should behave the way their natures were and how he refuses to accept other people's opinions. The footage ended shortly after his men started firing at the crowd. Once it was over, everyone was more or less at a lost of words.

Marisa eventually said something, breaking the silence. "Man… That guy's pretty crazy…"

"I can't agree with what that man said," Reimu said. "Byakuren is right; humans may be evil by nature, but that doesn't mean they cannot survive if they do not do evil things. Demons, even if they feed on human flesh, are capable of going throughout their entire life without eating such things too. Unless it has to do with something like fish swimming, I don't find it necessary to live exclusively by the nature you are born with."

"You won't believe the kinds of people this world contains, I tell you," Kotohime told her.

"Right, such as you collecting things that people normally do not collect," Marisa said.

"Any worse than you borrowing things for a lifetime?" Kotohime said to her. "Anyway, while this video didn't reveal anything important, such as what his name is and where he ran to, we at least learned what he is like. From what we've gathered so far, he is very well prepared for almost every situation and plans ahead. The fact that he managed to break into and then leave Scarlet Devil Mansion unscratched and then mess with the Myouren crew, only to get away mostly unharmed, are good proof of it."

"Indeed, such a person can be very dangerous," Reimu said. "But he's a normal human after all, so I doubt he can be that tough to deal with."

"I wouldn't underestimate him if I were you," Kotohime told him. "Information is power, and with good usage of it, even strength can be overcome by it. I have a dreaded feeling that even as we speak, he is already planning his next move… The fact that we don't know where he is at the moment and what he is planning are both dangerous to us…"

"Hmmm… Perhaps there are some things back at the lab and the workshop that can help us track him and his group down," Nitori said.

"Really? If that's true, then technology sure is useful-ze!" Marisa said.

"Trust me; technology IS incredibly useful! You better not underestimate the power of science!" Nitori told her.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Nitori has a wardrobe change here. Unless I bring it up, she'll be in that getup throughout my series.

It's not only the voice of the man that I envision being similar to The Dark Knight version of the Joker, but the character himself is based off him. Basically, that man is the Joker, but ill-tempered and, perhaps, more well planned. His name will eventually be revealed, so please be patient.

I like to imagine that Minamitsu has a water-like body that renders her invulnerable to most attacks, especially physical ones. It's just like Logia Devil Fruits from the One Piece series.

I also like to imagine Ichirin as a boxer. Unzan is known for punching, so why not? You'll have to expect certain characters having skills they aren't explicitly stated to have in my series.


	3. Nuclear Breaker

**Chapter 3  
Nuclear Breaker**

* * *

It was nighttime on the same day the disastrous incident happened in front of the Myouren Temple. The truck belonging to the man and his gang was parked in a field full of flowers.

The man got out of the truck and marched across the flower field until he came across someone sitting inside a small shack made of flowers. "What business do you have here, human?" the person inside the shack said. "You do realize that I feel nothing but hostility toward your kind. You also dare show yourself to me after the chaos you've caused at the fun fair held by those at the Myouren Temple."

"Which I believe will do me good in accomplishing something," the man said to the person. "It was also necessary to do that at the fair in order to make people realize the things that are soon to come. They have never witnessed what true chaos is, so I see fit to open their eyes and make them experience things firsthand. Anyway, I am here to help you accomplish your lifelong dream."

"My lifelong dream? What do you know about me?" the person replied. "If you knew about me, then you would never have come here, as it will surely be the last day of your life."

"Obviously, I didn't come unprepared," the man said. "You try to do something, and my men will burn up this whole place, including you."

"Don't you dare do anything like that!" the person angrily said to him.

"Then let's talk business, shall we?" the man said. "I guarantee you that you won't be disappointed if you work with me. I will provide you with the tools for getting the job done."

"Are you sure about this?" the person asked. "Assuming that you succeed in helping me accomplish my dream, are you not afraid that I may turn against you?"

"Threats and death do not scare me," the man said. "If that does happen, then it only proves my belief that all living things should live by their nature. You will only be proving and enforcing what I said if you kill me, and I will be the one laughing the end."

The person remained silent for a few seconds after hearing what the man said before saying, "You're weird… You're not like any normal human being…"

"In this dark and twisted era, being normal will only cause you to become prey for the strong and abnormal ones," the man said. "This world needs more people… who can see the true nature of life."

* * *

Kogasa Tatara the karakasa was staring in silence at pair of sandals at the side of the dirt road. She had been strolling around this place for several days already, and every time, she saw this pair of sandals lying there.

The blue-haired girl with heterochromia bent down in front of the sandals and looked at it with a look of slight sadness for several seconds in silence. Eventually, she picked it up and said, "Poor thing… Abandoned by its owner… I wonder if its owner lost it and forgot about it or threw it away."

Holding the sandals with her fingers, she started walking down the path. "People keep on forgetting to bring home with them their properties," she said. "I sure hope that they learn to remember more often and will also come back to pick up the things they left behind."

As she was traveling down the road, she spotted an elderly man walking in her direction, and when he came closer, she managed to get a good look at his sandals and saw that they were old and worn-out. In fact, they looked like they were going to break apart any second. They greeted each other when they crossed paths, and Kogasa continued to keep her eyes on the old man from behind as he walked away.

She looked at the sandals in her hand for a few seconds, and then she ran after the old and called out to him. He turned around and asked her what it was that she wanted, and she replied, "I noticed that your sandals are worn-out. Is it uncomfortable to wear?"

"I admit… It's a bit uncomfortable…" the old man replied. "The straws are sticking out in every direction, so I get a stinging feeling whenever I put these on… I wish to buy a pair of new sandals, if only I can afford them…"

Kogasa showed him the sandals she had with her. "You can have these, then. I found them on the side of the road, and it seems that they are abandoned. I know they look a bit old, but at least it looks newer compared to yours."

"You really want to give me that? What if the person who lost them came looking for them?" the old man asked her.

"I've been seeing these for a while already, so whoever owns them probably forgot about them," Kogasa told her. "Perhaps if you wear them around, someone will eventually see and recognize them. It's your choice on what you want to do with them, though."

"You have a good idea, little girl," the old man said. "I will try them now." He took the sandals from her and then changed the ones he was wearing with them. "My! These don't sting my feet! They're more comfortable to wear!"

"I'm glad to hear that!" Kogasa happily said.

"However, as these do not belong to me, I feel I should hand them over to the police," the old man said. "If the owner never shows up, then I'm sure the police will let me keep it. I will be wearing this back to the village in the meantime. Thank you very much for your kindness, little girl!"

"You're welcome! I'm glad to be of help!" Kogasa said, and then she waved good-bye to the old man as he continued down the road.

Having done a good deed, the karakasa happily skipped down the opposite direction. "It feels so good to be able to help someone!" she said. "It also feels good to find an owner for that pair of sandals! I hope they will be able reunite with their owner soon, and even if they don't, they at least have a new owner! How great it would be if all the lost and abandoned items in the world can have owners! Me included! Heehee!"

* * *

Somewhere near the foot of Youkai Mountain lies the entrance to the Underground Geyser Center, which took the appearance of a large hole on the ground. It was a place were nuclear-related research took place for the purpose of benefitting Gensokyo. At least that was what Kanako claimed…

As nuclear was a dangerous substance to approach, commoners were kept from entering the Underground Geyser Center. Barb wires were set up in the area around the hole, and a white wolf tengu was standing in front of the only gate to keep watch.

Armed with a sword and a shield, the white wolf tengu looked around the place for possible intruders, but she was inclining to the fact that there would never be anyone trying to break into this place, as she had been doing this job for quite some time already, and nothing bad had every happened, to the point where she thought it was pointless having someone guard this place.

Bored and hoping that the time to switch with another guard would come soon, she stretched her arms into the air and let out a loud yawn. The moment she closed her eyes was the moment her job as a guard came to an end, as a bullet whizzed in her direction in a moment's notice and went right through her head. As if that wasn't enough, another bullet was fired at her, this time going through her throat. The white wolf tengu instantly succumbed to her fatal wounds and fell back onto the ground, eyes and mouth still open.

A masked man suddenly appeared out of thin air, and he signaled for his boss and his comrades, who were scattered all over the place and hiding behind trees, rocks, and bushes, to come out. "That cloaking device we took from one of those so-called kappas after killing her sure helped a lot!" the masked man said.

"Hand it over," the leader said to him, and he did. "It will be of help to me while we're down there. All right, everyone get to your posts and get ready when we give the signal. You better remember everything you have to do."

"Yes!" his men replied.

The leader then went towards the giant hole on the ground, bringing with him three masked men. They walked past the dead white wolf tengu, went through the gate, and then stepped on a piece of ground that was sticking towards the hole. Once they were on it, that piece of ground suddenly descended to the bottom like an elevator. It was the way down to the nuclear facility for those who were incapable of flight.

Once the "elevator" touched the bottom, the three men stepped out and approached the large door that was at the end. Before getting too close to it, one of the masked men aimed his gun at a security camera that was spotted toward the upper right corner of the door and fired a small device that latched onto it. The device released electricity that caused the camera to malfunction without making it short-circuit or explode.

The four men continued their way into the nuclear facility, and once in there, they looked around to make sure that were nobody, and luckily for them, there were none. They went a bit deeper and noticed a door with the words "_Hazmat Room_" written on it. Knowing that it was dangerous to move around in a nuclear facility without wearing protective clothing, the men went over to that door. The leader opened the door slightly and peeked inside to make sure that was nobody in there before going in with his men.

Once in there, they quickly put on the hazmat suits. Once they were done, the leader said to them, "Wearing these should decrease the chance of people finding out our identities, but we still have to be careful about our actions, you understand?"

"Yes," his men replied with a nod.

"All right, let's go over the plans again," the leader said.

* * *

Reimu and Marisa were brought by Nitori to a place close to the foot of Youkai Mountain, as the latter was going to show them how they were going to find those group of people who caused trouble in Gensokyo recently. "So that thing is complete? Marisa asked.

"Yep!" Nitori replied with a nod.

"Wow! You sure work fast!" the witch commented commented.

"Actually, Rikako was the one who did it," Nitori told her. "I told her that we need something that can help us find that man and his group, and she said she'll get to work on one right away. Much as I hate to admit it, she's actually smarter than me in the field of science and technology, and knowing that looking for this man is an urgent matter, I had no choice but to ask someone who is smarter and more skilled than me to get the job done…"

"And you were always boasting how smart and skilled you are in the field of science," Reimu said to her.

"At least I'm among the top," the kappa said. "Okay, we're close to one of the entrances. Personally, I would use the underwater entrance in the river, but since the both of you can't hold your breathe for that long and aren't skilled at diving, I have to use one that is suitable for you."

"Wait, you're saying that there are various entrances to this science lab?" Marisa asked.

The kappa nodded. "Yep! Entrances to the lab are hidden, like, all over Youkai Mountain. There's even one inside the Moriya Shrine! Anyway, we're here."

Reimu and Marisa looked around for the entrance, while Nitori went over to large rock. She looked at the base of the rock as if searching for something and then kicked a part of it. Once kicked, the rock raised into the air, revealing itself to be a hidden elevator. Reimu and Marisa were surprised at the sight of it, and when the door opened, Nitori told them to come inside, which they did. Once they were in there, the elevator descended, and from the surface, one wasn't be able to tell that the rock contained a secret once again. When Marisa asked about the door opening by itself, Nitori replied that elevator doors automatically open by themselves using electricity when "summoned".

It took a few seconds for the elevator to reach the bottom, and when the door opened, the group stepped out. Reimu and Marisa were both amazed at the sight before their eyes, especially the latter. The whole place was made of metal and concrete, and various kappas and fairies were walking, running, and flying around the place, doing various things to keep themselves busy. There were also machines of various sizes, some giving off colors and some giving off sounds. Due to lacking knowledge in the field of science and technology, the shrine maiden and the witch had no idea what most of the things the workers were doing were about and what those machines were.

"Man! This place totally blows my mind, even though I have no idea what exactly it is I'm looking at!" Marisa said.

"I never knew that a place like this exists in Gensokyo!" Reimu said. "Kanako and the lot of you sure did a good job keeping this place a secret!"

"And you thought you saw the whole of Gensokyo, eh?" Nitori said to her. "Kanako says that Gensokyo isn't ready to embrace technology yet, so she decided to keep it a secret until the time is right, whenever that is. Plus, Gensokyo is currently in a very primitive state, so we still have to figure out how to transfer the various sources of energies we have to everyone. It may still take quite a while, but once we manage to make electricity widespread in Gensokyo, life for everyone will become better! We will finally be able to live life like the outside world!"

"I've never been to the outside world before, so I can't be the judge on whether that is a good idea or not," Reimu said.

"Yeah, simply reading books, hearing about it, and seeing stuff from there aren't enough," Marisa said. "Would be nice to be able to see the outside with my own eyes some time…"

"Trust me, I really want to see the outside world as much as you," Nitori said. "I've heard a lot about it and also read a lot about it, and it sounds like the perfect place for an engineer like me! Anyway, I'll take you to Rikako, who I asked to whip up something that can help us find those people. Follow me!"

The kappa led the duo through the place, and all the while, Reimu and Marisa looked at the place in awe and with curiosity. These were things that they had never seen before, and it made them think if science labs or whatever they were called were exactly the same as this in the outside world.

* * *

In order to hide their weapons, the villains got a trolley and hid them inside it. Now they had no fear of traveling through the Underground Geyser Center with their weapons being seen while still bringing them around.

Some of the workers of this place, also dressed in hazmat suits, greeted them when they crossed paths, and they greeted back in order to not arouse suspicion by lacking manners. When they came to a map that was on the wall, they took a few seconds to study it to find the location of the room they were looking for. After that, they continued on their way.

When they came across a cabinet that contained several control rods, the leader took a few seconds to think about something before taking one of them with him. "This should come in handy if we ever run into her," he thought.

They eventually arrived at the door leading into the room they were looking for. When they went through the automatic door, they saw a large pillar-shaped reactor in the center of the room. When the door closed, one of the masked men went over to the door's controller, which was at the side, and tinkered with it. "We don't have to worry about anyone coming in now," he said. "I can make it functional again when we're ready to leave."

"Good," the leader said, and then he turned to the reactor. "We got here way too easily. Most of the inhabitants here have little to no knowledge of nuclear power, so it's obvious that nobody would break into this place to steal anything, thus resulting in weak security. Someone will have to let these people realize the consequences of being too relaxed! All right, get to work!"

* * *

After a bit of walking, Nitori, Marisa, and Reimu came to a door that opened by itself by sliding apart both ways. Nitori told them that this automatic door differs from elevator doors in the way that the former is designed to open by itself when it detects a heavy enough weight in front of it. "That would make entering houses and rooms a lot easier if it is available to the public!" Marisa commented as they went through it.

"Doors like these are pretty common in the outside world, apparently," Nitori told her. Once in the room behind, they walked to the far end of the room, and Reimu and Marisa looked at the various kappas and fairies working in front of computers. They remember seeing such things in Kourindou, and according to Rinnosuke, it was a device that captured the spirits of different objects and living beings to project them onto their screens, and then one can view them in however way the user wanted to and even manipulate them. The kappa told them that wasn't how computers work and that spiritual stuff was definitely not involve in any of their functions.

They finally came across Rikako Asakura, who was also sitting in front of and working on a computer. The purple-haired scientist spun on around on her spinning chair and looked at the trio as they approached and said, "So you finally came."

"Did you finish making that?" Nitori asked her.

"Since this morning," she told her. "I spent most of the night working on it. It really isn't that hard, but to ensure that it works perfectly and that the results are accurate, I had to perform various testing until I found it satisfying."

"You spent most of the night building this computer thing?" Marisa asked the scientist.

"No, it's the software that I made, not the computer," Rikako told her.

"Software? What's that?" the witch asked.

"Encoded computer instructions that allow computers to perform various kinds of tasks," the scientist explained, "but there's no use explaining such things to people like you, since you won't understand any of those."

"Well, you're right about that…" said Marisa, admitting the truth.

"So… how are you going to use that software thing to find that person and his group?" Reimu asked Rikako.

Rikako faced the computer and searched for the software while saying, "This software will take a good look of the person's face on the footage Hatate recorded yesterday, and then it will scan the whole of Gensokyo for anyone with a facial appearance that matches his. The closer he is to us, the faster it can obtain the results."

She opened the program and then let the software "study" the face of the man in Hatate's recorded footage. Once it had the man's face "memorized", it showed a bird's eye view of Gensokyo and started scanning the entire place for either this man or anyone who looked like him. To Rikako's surprise, it took only two seconds of scanning for the result to appear. "What the?! That fast?!" she said.

"This isn't normal?" Reimu asked her.

"The only explanation for this is that this man is either in the same place as us or a place that is really, really close to here!" the scientist replied as she clicked on a button that made the software show the place the man was in. When the map of the place he was in was shown, Rikako and Nitori were surprised at where he was.

"He's… He's in the Underground Geyser Center?!" the kappa said.

"Underground Geyser Center? You mean the place where you do research on that form of energy called new clear?" Marisa asked. "And also one of the places Utsuho works at?"

"Exactly!" Rikako said. "And this place connects to that place too!"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's head over there and capture him at once before he does anything or gets away!" Reimu suggested.

Nitori quickly turned to one of the kappas in front of a computer and said to her, "Quick! Warn the people in the Underground Geyser Center about intruders!"

* * *

The leader was watching his men removing a spherical device that was about one and a half meter radius big from inside the reactor. After successfully removing it, they carefully placed it onto the top of the trolley, which was designed in a way so that large spherical objects wouldn't fall off it so easily.

"All right, then to move out," the leader said. "If anyone questions what we're doing, we'll just tell them that it needs a checkup, but if they still questions us, we'll silence them using the hard way."

One of the masked men went to tinker with the door's controller again, and while he was doing so, a loud voice was suddenly broadcasted into the room. It was broadcasted throughout the facility, so everyone present was able to hear it. "Warning! Intruders have entered the nuclear facility!" said the feminine voice. "They are the same people who robbed the Scarlet Devil Mansion and killed people at the Myouren Temple's fun fair! Find and capture them at once! At least keep them from getting out of here!"

"What?! How did they know we're here?!" one of the masked men said in shock.

"Get out the weapons at once!" the leader said. One of the men slid open the side of the trolley and took out the guns inside for everyone. After the man working on the door's controller managed to get the door to open, they quickly rushed outside.

Shortly after leaving the reactor room, they were confronted by two workers in hazmat suits. "What are you doing with the reactor's core?" one of them asked. "It's dangerous to move that around! It may explode!" He was immediately shot in the chest by the leader with a shotgun.

The other worker shrieked at the sight of seeing her partner getting killed, but she was immediately silenced in the same manner. "You guys go on ahead! I'll keep you covered!" the leader said to his men.

After moving forward, another worker showed up behind them. After seeing what they were taking with them and the two dead workers on the floor, he managed to come to the conclusion that the ones getting away were the intruders, so he shouted for them to stop, only to get blasted in the head by the leader's shotgun.

The villains ran through the facility as fast as they could, and on the way, the leader called for one of his men to contact their gang outside, and he did as told. They also shot down anyone who showed up to stop them. When they were finally close to the exit, a loud voice shouted at them. "Stop right there at once!"

The leader quickly turned around to fire at the person who told them to stop, but that person managed to dodge the shot with swift movement. The leader then gave the person a good look. It was a black-haired girl wearing a white shirt and a green skirt. Notable features about her were her black raven wings, the right foot that was encased in concrete, an orange arm cannon for the right arm, and a red, intimidating eye in front of the chest.

"You must be the intruders!" the girl—Utsuho Reiuji—said. "I won't let you get away with that reactor's core! That's a property of this place and can be very dangerous if misused!"

One of the masked men asked the leader, "It must be her… Right, boss…? What…? What do we do…?"

"Hand me your gun," the leader said to him, and he handed him his machine gun. "Go at once! I'll hold her back!" Then he open fired at Utsuho, but the hell raven swiftly moved to the side. His men quickly used this opportunity to run through the door.

"You're not getting out of here!" Utsuho said as she began to give chase, but the leader stopped her by firing at her with the machine gun, so she had to get out of the way. The masked men managed to get out of the facility, and then the door closed. "Hey! You let them get away!"

"All the better to get you to stay out of our business!" the man said as he switched the machine gun with his shotgun to fire at her, but she once dodged the shot.

"Well, then I'll take on you instead!" Utsuho said as she pointed her arm cannon at him. "Take this!"

**BGM: Shall We Fuse? (remix of Nuclear Fusion, done by dBu)**

She fired continuously at him, so he kept on running to avoid getting shot. He eventually pointed his shotgun at her and fired, so she stopped firing to dodge it. The hell raven then took off into the air, got in front of the man with a fast speed, pointed her arm cannon right at his face, and fired. However, the man acted fast and hurled himself to the side in the nick of time.

When he looked up after landing from his jump, he saw Utsuho swinging her arm cannon at him like a baseball bat, and he was hit in the face and sent flying back. The man grunted in pain as he got back up and saw the hell raven pointing her arm cannon at him. "You can't beat me! Give it up now!" she said to him, but he responded by firing his shotgun at her, only to have her dodge it. "Not giving up? Don't blame me for burning you to ashes, then!"

The hell raven fired rapidly at the man, so he found himself on the run from getting hit by nuclear energy balls once again. He quickly jumped behind a machine for cover, but the energy ball destroyed the machine in a single hit, and the explosion propelled him backwards.

The man was in pain from getting blasted by the explosion, and the part of the hazmat suit that covered his head was burned off as well. He ignored his pain and stood back up, firing rapidly from his machine gun at Utsuho when he did so. The hell raven flew into the air, pointed her arm cannon backwards, and released a burst of energy to propel herself forward headfirst. "Rocket Dive!"

Because of the speed, the man was unable to get out of the way in time, so the hell raven rammed him in the stomach really hard, pushing him forward a bit before pressing him against the floor.

Utsuho stood back and looked at the man, who was grunting in pain. "I'm sorry if I hurt you too much, but this is what you get for not willing to give up," she told her. "Had you decided to surrender yourself, I wouldn't have to do this to you. All right, now that you've lost the fight, you should allow yourself to be arrested. Here, let me help you up."

The hell raven stretched out her hand to help him up, and he allowed himself to be helped up. Shortly after standing back up, the man forcefully raised her arm cannon and then pointed his shotgun into its turret and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

Utsuho cried as the blast pushed her back a few steps, and she also felt pain in her hand. "Ow! What did you do to me my Third Leg?!" she angrily said. "That does it! I'm not showing mercy anymore!" When she tried to fire at him, the arm cannon started to tremble and release smoke from the turret, and all of a sudden, it exploded into pieces.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

"YAA!" Utsuho screamed. The hell raven grabbed her burned arm and cried in pain. There was also a rod pierced into her palm. "YAAAAAAA! IT HURTS! MY THIRD LEG AND HAND! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

"The moment I went to hide behind the machine that you destroyed, I took the opportunity to quickly insert the control rod I took from the cabinet into the turret of my shotgun," the man explained. "After you helped me up, I fired the control rod into your Third Leg. Control rods are used for controlling the rate of fission of uranium and plutonium, and since your source of power comes from nuclear energy, I figured I might be able to counter you using one. When the control rod was fired into your Third Leg, it caused the latter to explode when you used too much energy to fire from it."

The man then pulled back his fist before punching Utsuho across the face really hard. He punched her in the face multiple times and then grabbed her by the back of the head before slamming her forehead against the edge of a nearby table. After that, he kneed her in the abdomen three times and then pushed her forward onto the floor. The hell raven tried to crawl away while crying for help, but he placed one leg on her back and pulled her wing. With his other hand, he pointed his shotgun at the screaming and struggling hell raven.

He was going to pull the trigger when suddenly a miniature yin-yang orb flew into his hand and knocked the firearm away.

**BGM Ends**

When he turned to the side, he saw Reimu, Marisa, and Nitori standing there with angry looks on their faces. "This is as far as you go!" the shrine maiden angrily said to him.

The man growled in anger and then turned to run for the exit, but Marisa quickly got in front of him using her broom. "You're not getting away that easily!" she said before smacking him in the face with her broom. Nitori ran to him from behind and caught him by his shoulder. Due to the kappa having superior strength, the man was unable to break free from her grasp that easily.

The kappa forcefully pressed him against the floor, and Marisa pointed the back end of her broom at him, while Reimu pointed her gohei at him, saying, "There's no escape for you now! You're coming with us quietly!"

The man could do nothing but growl in anger and frustration. Much as he hated to admit it, he was without doubt caught with no way to escape.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Please be warned that **IT IS POSSIBLE** to run into NSFW pics and videos when looking for any of the mentioned BGMs on Youtube. You have been warned.

Also, I am going on a church retreat on Saturday, and if there is no update before that day, then it may take a while before the next chapter comes out, as I will not be returning until Tuesday. I apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you will have the patience to wait for my return and the next chapter.


	4. Nerve-Breaking Words of Frustration

**SBS Time!  
HighZealot: **I sure hope that was a nameless white wolf tengu who died.  
**Game2002: **Her name's Kaede, an OC who will never show up again.

**Another Man: **Those BGMs you added into the story, when do they end?  
**Game2002: **I have made mention of where the BGM ends in the previous chapter. From now on, I will make mention of this. Thanks a lot for making me think of this!

The part regarding the automatic door has been altered in the previous chapter. To fully understand things, please read from the part where Nitori reveals the hidden elevator underneath the rock to Reimu and Marisa before heading over to the automatic door part in the lab.

**Chapter 4  
Nerve-Breaking Words of Frustration**

* * *

Kogasa was cheerfully skipping through the Human Village while humming the theme The Sealed Cloud Route. Occasionally, she would jump up slightly while performing a spin, and she would also spin around on one leg with her arms stretched out to the sides. While happily doing all these, Kogasa saw several people gathered together at the front.

Curious about what those people were doing, she went over to get a look, but the people were pressed together too tightly for her to squeeze her way through. She looked to the side and saw a building, so she jumped onto the top of it with an abnormally high jump and then bent down on all fours at the edge of the roof. There, she saw the leader of the criminals being led down the road by a group of police, and the crowd was shouting angrily at him.

These people had every reason to be angry, as some of them were survivors of his men's attack, and some were relatives and friends of those who lost their lives to them. Some even tried to charge at him to harm him, but the police kept them from doing so. Even though this man committed horrible crimes, he still had to face justice and not the blind wrath of the crowd.

* * *

The man was eventually taken to the police station and seated in the interrogation room. There, Kotohime, a single police officer, Reimu, Marisa, Hatate, and a tengu reporter with long black hair almost reaching to the waist were there. The latter's attire was exactly the same as Aya's. "Okay," Kotohime said to the man. "It's time to start the interrogation. You better answer my questions honestly, or else I will have no choice but to call Satori over to read your mind. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you…"

"I'm sure Satori will be more than willing to do anything to get you into trouble after finding out what you did to one of her pets," Reimu said to the man.

"Anyway, let's begin with something simple," Kotohime said to the man. "What is your name?"

The man remained silent for several seconds, as if he didn't want to answer that question. Kotohime was about to ask him the second time when he suddenly replied, "The only name you're going to refer to me as is… Human Being. That's how they call me out there as well."

Kotohime stared in silence at him for a few seconds, and then she said to him, "Please be serious. I didn't bring you here to tell me jokes and silly stuff. Once again, what is your name?"

"I said Human Being is the only way I want to be referred as!" the man loudly replied. "If you have a problem, then go ahead and make up names that satisfy you! I'm not saying anything else regarding this, and that's final!"

That single police officer was angrily at his attitude and said to him, "You better show some respect to our commissioner! You are in no place to speak to her like that, you vermin!"

Kotohime told the police to be quiet and calm down, and then she said to Human Being, "Okay, if that's what you want to be referred as, so be it. You said that it is what they call you out there, so you must be from the outside world, right? I take that you came here through the other side of the Hakurei Shrine, right?"

"How else do you think I got here?" the man said to her. "The demon of boundaries should know better than to bring in someone who would bring nothing but trouble."

"So you know Yukari?" Reimu asked.

"Who else here is called the demon of boundaries?" the man rudely asked her.

A look of annoyance appeared on the shrine maiden's face. "Geez… Your attitude makes me angry!"

"All right, now give the details on how you got here," Kotohime said Human Being. "To my knowledge, the shrine on the other side is located on top of a staircase, and while I am not that knowledgeable on outside world objects, I can tell that it's impossible for your transportation device to make it up staircases using wheels. Did your transportation device come from here?"

"I brought it with me from the outside," the man said. "If you want to escape the law, then you'll need to have something that is capable of taking you almost anyway. The wheel was modified to climb up most slanted surfaces with ease, including stairs. The ride to the top was still a bumpy one, however. The police chased us by foot to the top, and thinking that we have nowhere else to run, we stopped the truck in front of the shrine and got into a gunfight with them. It was during that time when the atmosphere around us became distorted, and the next thing we knew, we were in a forest."

"So that's how you came to Gensokyo," Marisa said.

"After realizing that we are in a foreign place, we set off to gather as much information as we could from the Human Village, such as reading books from the book rental store and talking with inhabitants," Human Being continued. "We stayed low for about a week, and when we decided that we were ready to take this place by storm, we targeted the Scarlet Devil Mansion as the first location."

"Just by gathering information, you've managed to defeat Remilia and fight the Myouren crew without getting scratched?" Reimu said.

"Information is power. If you have the knowledge on how to defeat someone, then your chances of winning are very high," the man said. "This world is seriously lacking in criminals who put enough effort into what they are doing. They are not taking the world by storm. They are not showing everyone what the true nature of humans is. That is why I decided to call myself Human Being, for I am behaving the way a human should be behaving. I am the prime example of human behavior!"

"Geez… That's messed up…" Marisa said after hearing all that. "Just because it's natural for people to do evil stuff doesn't mean they must do that. You speak as if people do not have control over their lives at all!"

"Have you ever realized how annoying and frustrating things can be when you try to alter their course of nature?" Human Being said to her without turning his head. "For example: you try to alter the direction of a river, and to do that, you will have to dig a new passage for it to go through. Doing that is hard work, so why waste your time changing something that nature has determined? In the same way, demons and the likes cause incidents here in Gensokyo often. Resolving them must be very tiring, isn't it, shrine maiden?"

"I can't deny that," Reimu said with a nod. "But as annoying as they are, do you expect me to leave them alone and do nothing?"

"You should," the man said. "Why bother trying to resolve something that will keep on happening? If it is something that happens all the time, then let it be! How much easier will your life become! You could've lived a more carefree life if you had chosen to ignore those incidents and let them unfold themselves. If you die, then so be it!"

"If it will cause the death of myself if I leave it alone, then I'd rather get up and do something about it. There's no way I would sit back and allow myself to die!" Reimu said to him. "I'm sorry, but I simply cannot agree with your ridiculous way of thinking! I simply don't understand why you would think of things like these!"

"Some things don't change. It is the work of nature that determines how the life of people should be," he said. "You are only bringing burden to yourself by trying to change the course of nature. No matter how hard you try, certain things will never change, much like no matter hard you work to earn money for your parents to please them, your father will always use your hard work to satisfy his alcoholic and gambling desires, and no matter how much you lecture him or get him to change, you will only get scolded and beaten up. If trying to change things will only bring yourself burden, then it's better that you leave things as they are."

After hearing what he said, everyone in the room started to have an idea of the kind of life that he went through to become like this, and they couldn't help but feel pity for him. "So I take that you led a bitter life…" Kotohime said. "Even so, that doesn't give you an excuse to take the path of crime."

"I'm willing to guarantee that each of you will realize how futile it is in trying to make changes," Human Being said. "You are going to wear yourself to death before you make any changes. Why waste your time? Just let things go as they currently are."

There was a bit of silence among everyone for several seconds, and then Kotohime brought up a new question. "All right, you better answer me this one: where are your subordinates hiding? And what are you planning to do with the reactor's core?"

"It doesn't matter whether or not they have me," Human Being said. "They are still going to carry things out without their leader. If you thought you've managed to shatter their wills by capturing me, then I can assure you that you've wasted your time."

"What are you planning to do with the reactor's core?" asked Kotohime again, this time sounding more serious. "According to the workers at the Underground Geyser Center, that thing can be made into a bomb powerful enough to destroy everything in Gensokyo. Don't tell me that you're planning to blow up this place with that."

"And you do realize that you would kill yourself too if you blow up Gensokyo?" Reimu told Human Being.

"Anyone with a brain should know better than to use something that can doom himself," Human Being replied.

"So… you're not going to use the reactor's core to blow up Gensokyo?" Kotohime asked him. "Still, that thing is dangerous and must be retrieved at once. Where are your men hiding it?"

Human Being looked at her for a few seconds and said, "You know, this would be a good time for you to call over that mind reader. You're not going to get anything out of me regarding that."

Kotohime said to him in a more serious tone, "Seriously, I want you to tell me at once where the reactor's core is. It doesn't matter what your men are doing with it. The fact that something that may destroy Gensokyo is in the wrong hands does not sit well with me, and I fear for the lives of the inhabitants. You must tell me where your men are now!"

"People die in the end. It's only a matter of time, so why bother trying to save or prolong lives?" Human Being said to her. "You're only delaying the inevitable."

"You better tell us where your men are hiding that core thing at once!" Reimu said to him. The shrine maiden was getting more and more annoyed by his attitude.

"Starting to get impatient, eh?" the man said as he turned to her. "It's natural that humans would get angry when faced with something that frustrates them after all."

Frustrated, Reimu said to him loudly, "Look! You better tell me where in the world your men are hiding themselves and that thing, or else I'm going to give you a beating that you wish you never experienced! Your attitude is making me throw up already! I totally had enough of your arrogant attitude and your way of thinking! In all my life, I have never met someone as annoying as you! Remilia's cocky attitude is tolerable and not like yours! Utsuho's dumb idea of wanting to burn the world to ashes was tolerable as well! You're totally in a whole different league than them! Course of nature this! Course of nature that! Not making changes! Avoiding answering questions and giving pointless answers about the way of nature and such! Don't you think you have enough of your pointless talks already?!"

"Loud voices do not scare me," Human Being said to her. "In fact, intimidation, threats, and violence do not scare me as well. All those are part of human nature, so you have to put up with facing those. You will always encounter such things in life, no matter how much you try to avoid them."

A nerve inside Reimu snapped, and then the shrine maiden gave him a slap across the face. Such an act of impulse surprised the others, as they have never seen her do something like this. Reimu kicked the man off the chair and then proceeded to stomp him over and over, and Marisa and the police officer quickly grabbed her from behind and pulled her back before she went too far. "LET GO OF ME! I'M GOING TO STOMP HIM UNTIL HE DIES!" Reimu shouted at the top of her voice.

"Calm down, Reimu! It's not like you to behave like this!" Marisa said to her. "Get a hold of yourself!"

"Go on and hit me!" Human Being said to her as he stood back up. "It is in the nature of humans to use violence, so go ahead and act the way you are supposed to act! Go ahead and kill me too! It is natural for a living being to kill another living being, so go ahead and kill me to prove that what I said is correct! Go ahead and kill me! GO AHEAD!"

"YOU BET I WILL!" Reimu shouted in rage as she tried to escape Marisa and the police officer's grasps to get to the man, but they held her back even harder.

As Human Being continued to taunt her, two policemen came into the room and quickly dragged him out when Kotohime ordered for them to do so. Even after the man was dragged out, Reimu continued to shout at him while pointing at the outside of the room. "KILL HIM! EXECUTE HIM! MAKE HIM NEVER SEE THE END OF IT! I WANT THAT PIECE OF TRASH DEAD AT ONCE!"

"Whoa… This is the first time I've seen Reimu getting this mad…" Hatate said. "Makes me wonder what would happen if all the other opponents she faced in the past ever crossed her line…"

* * *

After the interrogation was over, the long-haired tengu reporter quickly headed over to Eientei, which was located somewhere in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. Normally, it would take a while for people unfamiliar with the geography of the bamboo forest to find the residence of Kaguya Houraisan, the Lunarian princess, or so she used to be before escaping from the moon, but for someone who was capable of flight, the tengu managed to find the residence in a short amount of time.

Once in the building, she talked to a rabbit demon in there that she was here to find Aya, and so the latter took her to Eirin, who then took her to the sickroom Aya was confined to.

While Aya's health was no longer in danger, Eirin said that she still had to be confined to bed in order for her wound to fully recover, as moving around now would only make her condition worse. Much as Aya disliked being confined to one place and not do her job, she had no choice but to listen to her if she wanted to fully recover. Because of this, Bunbunmaru sent one of her colleagues to the interrogation in her place.

Standing next to Aya's bed, the tengu said everything she jotted down in her notebook to her, and the latter listened with great interest. After she was done, the reporter handed Aya her notebook for her to go through things by herself. "Great job noting down all these, Kara!" Aya said to her. "This guy sure is strange and creepy… He even managed to make Reimu snap, and I've never seen her like that before too… Anyway, I'm sure we can make a good article out of this. However, I wonder if we should bring up Reimu snapping… Wonder how she'll put up with that…"

"Perhaps it's better not to… Anyway, I'm glad to be of help!" Kara said to her. "However, compared to you, my skills are still far off. You are Bunbunmaru's top reporter, so we wish that you would recover soon. Bunbunmaru feels very different without you, and Kakashi Spirit News is currently having the upper hand due to your absence."

"Don't worry; I'll be sure to step on top of them again once I'm back on duty," Aya said without taking her eyes off the notebook. "Just let them celebrate their short-lived victory in the meantime."

"Even so, Hatate expressed her concern towards you," Kara told her. "Even though you are rivals, she still does care about you."

"I know," Aya said with a nod. "She's not a bad person, actually. We may bicker with each other about who is better at reporting news and gathering information, but we're not sworn enemies who wish to see the death of each other. Please give her my thanks when you see her again regarding her concern towards me, okay?"

"No problem!" Kara said to her.

* * *

News of Human Being being put behind bars quickly spread throughout Gensokyo, and needless to say, everyone was glad that the dangerous criminal was finally subdued. However, the fact that his men were still at large with something that was reported to be powerful enough to destroy Gensokyo still made everyone worried, and it didn't help the fact that Human Being refused to shed a single detail on where they were hiding and what exactly they were doing with the reactor's core they stole from the Underground Geyser Center.

Byakuren was sitting in her room, reading a scroll, when the door opened and Nue came in. "Did you hear that, Mistress Hijiri?" the latter said to her. "The man who hurt you and ruined the fun fair is now behind bars! Isn't that great news?"

"Yes, I've heard of it," the magician said without turning around. "Such is the fate of one who chooses to go down the path of evil, but I cannot help but feel pity for him as well. Had he decided to realize his errors and change from his ways, he would never have to meet such a fate."

"Oh, you don't have to feel pity for such a horrible person like him," Nue said to him. "He gave you a beating, and one of his men confined Nazrin to bed too! A person like him deserves to be thrown into prison for the rest of his life! All that's left is to find and capture his men!"

"I understand the reason that one would feel glad when evil people like him is imprisoned, but we shouldn't lower ourselves to the same level as them by laughing at misfortune," said Byakuren as she turned to her. "A man having to pay and suffer for his crimes is a heavy blow already, so to add to that blow with insults is not an ethical thing to do."

"You're so kindhearted… No wonder they managed to seal you away back then so easily, because you didn't bother to fight back…" Nue commented.

"But it makes me glad to know that humans and demons now get along with each other more so than the past! Even if I myself didn't accomplish anything by getting sealed away, I'm still glad everything turned out closer to what I hoped for, and that's enough for me to consider that I wasn't sealed away for naught!" Byakuren said with a smile.

"So optimistic… Wonder if I can ever be like you…" Nue said.

"Look on the bright side of life, and you will surely be able to be cheerful all the time!" Byakuren told her.

"Whatever…" Nue said as she walked away with her trident placed against her back, just above the shoulders. She was told by Ichirin to put it down and also not to carry it around like that when it almost hit the latter.

When Nue was outside, she saw Shou swinging around her spear and occasionally trusting it against the air. The fact that she was sweating showed that she had been doing this for a while already and was also putting a lot of effort into it. "Practicing really hard, eh?" Nue said as she went over to her, but she made sure to keep her distance so that she shouldn't get hit by the spear.

"I have to become stronger if I want to be able to protect Master Hijiri and everyone here," Shou told her without turning to look at her. "For a long time, I've only had this spear for looks. After hearing what that man said, I realized that he is right; I really have to put more effort into being more like a tiger demon. Tigers are one of the most powerful cats, but I lack the power of one. All this time, I have only relied on projectiles to fight, so I can't do much when fighting up close. Since I have a spear, I should be putting it to more use!"

"Makes sense," Nue said with a nod. "Well, I hope you get better at it!"

"Speaking of which, you should put your trident to more use as well," Shou told her. "You really only carry around that for looks and rarely use it to fight. You won't like it if you ever run into a situation like mines."

"Don't worry; I know how to defend myself," Nue assured her. "The fact that I can hide my true form using illusions is a good enough form of defense! They'll be fleeing in fear from a horrifying monster before they have the chance to do anything to me!"

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Shou told her. "You have to be prepared for anything."

* * *

Kosuzu Motoori, the owner of Suzunaan, a book rental store located in the Human Village, was filled with guilt. Reimu and Marisa were there, trying to comfort her. "All this time… I've been helping criminals make plans for hurting people…" the crying store owner said. "I never wanted any of my books to make people do things like those… I only wanted my books to help and benefit people… Give them knowledge, teach them new things, entertain them… I helped criminals… I… I…"

Kosuzu buried her head in her arms and cried loudly, and Reimu petted her while saying, "You don't have to blame yourself. You have no idea that you were helping criminals after all. Plus, it's their own decision that they wanted to use what they learned here to do harm. It's not like your books were made to teach people to do those things."

"Yeah, you don't have to blame yourself," Marisa told Kosuzu. "It's not your fault at all. Don't worry; now that their leader is behind bars, you can be sure that he'll never be able to use the knowledge he obtained here to hurt people again!"

Kosuzu looked up, still looking sad, and said, "But… But… what if he escapes…?" Then her eyes slowly shifted to a book that was lying at the side of the table.

Reimu and Marisa looked at the book, which they didn't pay attention to when they came, and saw that it was entitled _All About Escapology_. Marisa picked up the book and flipped through it. "What's this?"

"It's a book that teaches people how to escape from prisons, bondages, and other forms of restraints," Kosuzu explained. "This was one of the books he looked into when he was here, so I think he was trying to prepare himself for when he gets imprisoned."

"Well, that may be a problem…" said Marisa while flipping through the book.

"There are guards in front of his cell, so I'm sure he won't be able to escape," Reimu said to Kosuzu. "He better hope that he doesn't let me see him if he escapes."

"Still mad about that...?" Marisa asked her.

* * *

Alice was never one to associate herself with the public or other people. She had always been the kind of person to be all by herself, going as far as secluding herself deep inside the Forest of Magic. While Marisa's house was located close to hers, she doesn't really communicate all that much with her either, at least not without reasons, as she lacked social skills.

During the whole Human Being fiasco, the magician remained inside the forest, never stepping outside of it even for a second. After all, her house was currently well stocked with daily necessities, so there was no reason to go out, unless she was low on supplies.

She did hear about the criminals causing trouble, but she wasn't scared at all, as she had confidence that they wouldn't come all the way into the forest to find her. After all, her house wasn't very big, and there was nothing worthy of stealing after all, unless one considered her collection of dolls to be quality goods. She figured that as long as she stayed in her house, she would always have peace and quietness. Something like that should be left for the Hakurei shrine maiden to solve, not her.

While reading a book and controlling her favorite doll, Shanghai, to fan herself, knocks came to her door. Other than Marisa, she couldn't think of any other people who would come and visit her at a time like this, so she called out to whoever was outside for response.

"Remember my voice?" replied the person outside. It took Alice a few seconds to figure out whose voice it was, and she was surprised.

"Can it be… her?" she wondered, and then she quickly went up to the door and opened it. Despite getting the answer correct, she was still surprised to see who was out there and the other person she expected to show up along. "Yuki! Mai!"

Standing outside was a blond girl dressed in a black and white dress and a black hat. Standing behind her was a blue-haired girl tied with a white ribbon, and she was wearing a white dress with detached sleeves. Also tied around her neck was a red piece of cloth. What was most notable about her was a pair of angelic wings growing out of her back.

The former, Yuki, said to Alice while adjusting her hat, "Surprised to see us, eh? It's been a while, Alice!"

"Been a while," said the latter, Mai, with an "unimpressed" expression.

"It's really been a while!" Alice said. "I'm really surprised to see you here! Never expected that the two of you would leave Makai! Come on in!"

Alice's two "sisters" came into the house and made themselves comfortable on the chairs in front of the table. Alice took control of her dolls to make them bring them cups and then pour tea for them. "Nice skills!" Yuki commented. "You're getting better at them since the last time we saw you!"

"The more you have interest in something, the more you're going to improve on it," Alice said as she sat down in front of them. "What brings you here? It's a rare sight to see people from Makai coming out here."

""We heard about what happened in Gensokyo recently, about a group of people going on a killing spree," Yuki told her. "Mistress Shinki was worried about your wellbeing when she heard about it, so she told us to come and pay you a visit to see if you are doing fine."

"News of what happened here reached as far as Makai?" Alice curiously said.

"More like… Luiz spread the news to us," Yuki told her. "You know how she's constantly traveling all over the place. She happened to be at a fun fair out here when those things happened, so she came back and reported things to us."

"Well, that explains things…" Alice said. "Anyway, as you can see, I'm perfectly fine. I've been in my house this whole time, so nothing happened to me at all, and I am not worried about anything happening."

"That's good to know!" Yuki happily said. "Mistress Shinki will definitely be glad to know that you're all right! She hopes for you to go back to Makai and stay there for the time being until things settle down here, however. What do you say?"

"It's all right," Alice told her. "Still, you can go back and give her my thanks. I am sure of my wellbeing here. Nothing bad will happen at all."

"Yeah, you're pretty convincing all right," Yuki said before drinking tea. "After all, you managed to stay alive all this time living in a dangerous forest like this. While we were on our way here, we ran into a giant mushroom monster that attacked us. I managed to make a short work out of it, though."

"You managed to take out one of those mushroom demons by yourself?" asked Alice, sounding surprised. "Well, not that much of a surprise, considering that you know how to fight more than me… Furthermore, fire is effective against fungi."

"Oh, I just remembered something," Yuki said after taking the cup away from her mouth. "We passed through the Human Village on our way here, and we heard that tonight, there's going to be a celebration regarding the capture of those criminals' leader. Sounds interesting! Want to go with us?"

"Really? They're having a celebration?" Alice asked.

"Yep! Since you know more about the Human Village than us, why don't you be our tour guide?" Yuki asked her, and then she turned to Mai. "You think it's a good idea too, Mai?"

Mai shrugged. "Whatever."

Yuki turned back to Alice. "Okay! Let's go out and have some fun tonight! Let's go and seize the day tonight, what do you say?"

"Well, since I don't have anything else to do, why not?" Alice said with a shrug.

Yuki punched the air with excitement. "Yahoo! We're going to have lots of fun tonight!"

* * *

TO BE CONTIUNED

Because I wish to post this chapter before church retreat, it got shortened. Still, it's a pretty long chapter, so I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm not sure if Reimu was really acting out of character. The fact that I made her act like that is to show how hard it is to put up with Human Being. I know; that name doesn't sound interesting, but I did let him give a reason behind such a name, so I hope you can accept calling him that.

Because Alice aged in between the events of MS and PCB, I'd imagine that Mai and Yuki aged as well if they ever return to the series. Their "aged" appearances are based off the artist Hemogurobina1c's way of drawing them. Be warned, however, that you **WILL** run into NSFW contents if you wish to search for his/her artworks. S/he is also responsible for creating the "official" Touhoumon sprites.

On the side note, Mai is my number one favorite PC-98 character. Hemogurobina1c's way of drawing her is what made me like her. The fact that she said only two lines in this chapter may make it look otherwise, but trust me, she's one of my favorites.

Kara is my OC, BTW.


	5. Great Escape

I'm back from church retreat! Since five days ago… Sorry for procrastinating and not getting this chapter up faster… Could've updated yesterday, but… You know the deal…

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter! Also, it's nice to have Ichirin playable in Hopeless Masquerade!

**Chapter 5  
Great Escape**

* * *

Nighttime had fallen upon Gensokyo, and it was at this time that the Human Village became more lively than usual. Despite knowing that the criminals were still out there, the fact that their leader, Human Being, was imprisoned was considered enough for the inhabitants of the village to be happy and celebrate, for they believed that as long as the leader was behind bars, the subordinates would lose the will to do anything else.

Lanterns were put up all over the place, making the village look bright and cheerful, and various people were dancing, singing, and performing happily on the roads for onlookers to watch and enjoy. Stands selling various kinds of things and foods were also set up, as it was common sense to try to conduct business in places of large gatherings.

Mystia Lorelei didn't waste this opportunity to conduct business as well. Even though she was a demon that preyed on humans, she also knew the importance of trying to make a living through profit, especially when one lived in a civilized place that was keeping dangerous demons in check. She was currently running her lamprey stand in a medium-sized lot, and there were several tables set up before her stand for her customers to dine at. Alice, Yuki, and Mai were seated at one of the tables, enjoying dishes that had lampreys as part of their ingredients.

"Despite what Shinki told her, she still continued to wear herself out with her intense trainings," Yuki said to Alice after taking a bite from a grill lamprey skewered on a wooden stick. "However, it seems that her training finally paid off, as she no longer, or rarely, breaks her hands or wound herself when she punches trees and rocks. Honestly saying, she's one person I wouldn't want to mess with up close… You really have to see for yourself to know how strong she became!"

"Sara became that strong?" said Alice, almost not believing what she heard.

"It's true," Yuki said with a nod. "It's no doubt that she's already black belt level, but despite that, she's still training, like, twenty-four hours a day and resting very little. Shinki, despite feeling proud for her for becoming so strong, is worried about the fact that she's wearing herself out, so she encourages her to rest often and not to become too ambitious, lest she destroy herself. Not sure if she ever got what she said into her head, though… When we were leaving Makai, we saw her shattering boulders as part of her training…"

"I guess Reimu and Marisa getting past her back then was really a huge blow to her," Alice said. "Sara loves her job as a gatekeeper, so failing to perform her duties really struck her hard. I can understand why she is doing this, but still, she really should look after herself more. There's no merit in destroying your own body just to become stronger."

"She insists that she knows what she's doing, so I'm sure that she learned her lesson the first time she was prohibited from training after almost… mutilating her hands," Yuki said.

"That's good to hear," Alice said, and then she turned to look at Mai, who was quietly drinking from her cup with an "unamused" look. "So… Mai… You've been very quiet… You barely said anything since I met you today… So… got anything you want to say?"

Mai put down her cup and simply said, "Nothing."

"Okay… I hope you're enjoying…" Alice said. Mai simply nodded before eating grilled lamprey on a stick.

"Don't worry; she's still pretty much like how you know her," Yuki told Alice. "Sure, she may behave a bit different, but inside, she's still the Mai you know."

Alice tried to recall how she had always known Mai, and the most prominent traits about her that came to her mind were uncaring, cold, treacherous, and someone who did not fit in any way the definition of a faithful companion at all. "Okay… She's still the same like always…" she said. "Not sure if that's a good thing…"

"Don't worry; she knows her to show care and concern to people close to her," Yuki told her. "Keyword: people close to her."

* * *

The sight of performers who performed using umbrellas made the onlookers go wow, but none of them were as excited and thrilled as Kogasa, who basically lost all focus at whatever was happening around herself. The karakasa watched with a wide open mouth and sparkling eyes at the graceful and skilled umbrella-based performances. The performers spun them rapidly to balance things on top, and there was also one performing magic tricks that involved pulling out several things, including pigeons, out from underneath his umbrella. He would even make more umbrellas of different color "appear" from the existing one.

Kogasa's eyes were totally fixated on the performance, and as she watched, she said in her head, "If only I am one of those umbrellas! How great it would be to be used in awesome performances like these! I would become the most famous and happiest umbrella in the world!"

While she was thinking of this, Reimu walked up next to her and looked at the performers for a few seconds before turning her glance to Kogasa, but the karakasa was too busy watching the performance that she didn't notice her at all. The shrine maiden said nothing and then continued watching the performance, since there wasn't really anything she wanted to say to the karakasa anyway.

"Let's hope things go like this for the whole day…" Reimu said in her head. "It's totally going to be a party pooper if his subordinates show up and wreck up the whole place just to rescue him. In the very least, rescue him in secret without causing any trouble…"

* * *

"Man… This place sure is crowded…" Mokou said as she tried to squeeze her way through the large amount of people that were moving around a certain part of the village. "I think this may be the first time that it's like this here… To think that one man being arrested would draw so much attention… How am I supposed to find Keine like this…?"

Suddenly, she felt someone patting her in the back, and a voice also said to her, "Hi! How you've been?" Mokou turned to see a guy with a shaved head looking at her, and he looked surprised when he saw her face. "Oh… Mistook you for someone else… Sorry about that…"

"That's all right," Mokou said before turning to continue on her way, not realizing that there was a small circular device attached to the back of her shirt. The man then quickly squeezed his way through the crowd opposite of her.

Meanwhile, a man with spiky hairdo walked up next to the window of a house and looked around to make sure that there was nobody looking at him, and then he looked into the house to make sure that there was no one inside before dropping a small circular device in there. He then left with haste.

Elsewhere, a man with flat-top haircut dropped a circular device onto the ground and then quickly ran away. At the same time, a man with curly hair was at another part of the village, dropping the same kind of device into a crate containing fish while pretending to look at a fishmonger's stand. He then left in panic, just like the aforementioned three.

* * *

Within the police station, the policemen were busy keeping watch of the prisoners. Other than Human Being, there were six other prisoners locked up behind bars as well. One of the policemen looked out the entrance and saw the people out there celebrating and having fun, and he said, "I really want to go out there and enjoy as well…"

Another policeman who was nearby said to him, "You'll have to wait for your shift. If too many of us leave this place, it will be left unguarded, and the prisoners will likely try to do something to escape."

"I doubt they will be able to escape," the first policeman said. "They've been locked up here for a long time already, and none of them has ever attempted to escape."

"You still have to be on the lookout for that possibility," his colleague told him. "Being a policeman requires you to be on guard for anything. Just wait until the others come back for the shift, and then you can go out there and enjoy."

"They've been gone for about forty minutes already… They should be back soon," the first one said. "They're only allowed an hour out there."

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The loud explosion shocked both the policemen and everyone who was outside. The first policeman ran outside and looked around for the source of the explosion, while everyone screamed and ran around in panic. He looked to the right and saw a large column of smoke rising in the distance. "What on earth just happened?!" he asked in shock. Suddenly, there was another sound of explosion, which was quickly followed by another, and then another. In just a mere eight seconds, a total of four explosions occurred.

Kotohime rushed out of her office and asked, "What just happened?! Where are those explosions coming from?!"

"I can see columns of smoke outside!" the policeman who stepped outside said. "It seems to be the work of explosives!"

"Head over there at once!" Kotohime said. "We must investigate and see what happened!"

"Yes, commissioner!" said the policeman. Some policemen were quickly dispatched to investigate this matter, and some stayed behind, obviously to make sure that the place was guarded.

Inside his prison, Human Being, sitting on his bed, said to no one in particular, "About time."

* * *

People were in panic and also busy putting out the fire created by the explosions. Those who were injured by the explosions were quickly carried away by those who were all right.

"Quick! Put out the fire!"

"We need more water!"

"My house!"

"My son was at the site of the explosion!"

"Someone's injured here! Help me carry him!"

"Someone's one fire! Water! Quick!"

During the midst of the chaos, Keine Kamishirasawa, a teacher and the protector of the Human Village, was trying her best to calm down everyone and making sure that things weren't a mess. "Everyone! Get the injured ones out of here at once! Take them to places where they can rest and be treated! Please get water as well! We need a large amount of them to put out the fire! Hurry! Don't panic! Don't rush! Please don't push down and step on others as well!"

While she was loudly giving out orders, she noticed Mokou, charred from head to toe, moving in her direction. "Mokou! Did you get caught in the explosion?" Keine asked her.

"More like… I was right in the center of the explosion…" the immortal girl replied. "Whatever it was, it exploded right behind me… Tore me and scattered pieces of me all over the place, but regeneration kicked in shortly afterwards… Had to look for my left ear, however, which someone was holding while freaking out…"

* * *

As Kotohime and the policemen who were accompanying her were rushing to the site of one of the explosions, the sound of gunfire was suddenly heard, and screams filled the air as people started to fall over. "This sound! Duck for cover!" Kotohime shouted. The policemen with her quick ducked down like she said, but the crowd was too busy running and screaming that they did not do the same, and many of them were shot by bullets that were fired from seemingly nowhere.

While ducked down, Kotohime looked around for the source of the bullets, but she was unable to spot anyone firing. "Darn it! Where is the attacker shooting from?!"

* * *

Mai, Yuki, and Alice were getting pushed around by the panicking crowd, but they were fortunate enough to not be shot at all. "Whoa! This place is a mess!" Yuki said. "Who's behind this?!"

"We better get out of here now!" Alice said. "It's too dangerous to stay here! We may lose our lives as well!"

Suddenly, there was the sound of gunfire again, and more people were shot down. The trio quickly ducked down for safety, and that was when Yuki caught a glimpse of a masked man hiding in between two houses, and in his arm was a machine gun. "It must be him!" she thought.

When the man stopped firing and turned around to disappear into the alley, Yuki jumped in his direction and took flight to go after him. "Yuki! Where are you going?!" Alice shouted at her.

"I think I found the person responsible!" Yuki said as she landed in front of the alleyway to give chase on foot. "I'll get him!"

The witch ran after the masked man and shouted for him to stop, and he responded by turning around to shoot her, but she swiftly moved to the side. She folded her hand into a fist and made fire appear around it, and then a burst of fire came out from her feet to make her propel forward at a fast speed. She slammed her fiery fist into the man's abdomen and knocked him onto the ground.

She then picked up the man by his collar and said to him in anger, "Who are you and why are you doing this?!" Unknown to her, another masked man sneaked up to her from behind with a knife in his hand. He was about to stab her from behind when suddenly he got stabbed through the back by what appeared to be an icicle, and his scream of agony caused the witch to turn around in surprise.

"GYAAAAAAAAAA!" the masked man screamed as the icicle got pulled out, and then Mai, the person who stabbed him, spun him around to slash him in the throat with the tip of the icicle, killing him.

The masked man Yuki was holding was horrified at the sight of his companion getting killed, while the black witch had a look of disgust on her face. "Ugh… Mai… You didn't have to do that, did you…?" she asked.

"He tried to kill you," Mai replied in an emotionless tone.

Alice arrived at the scene, and she had witnessed what happened earlier. She was horrified at what her "sister" just did and said, "Mai! You killed that man! You didn't have to go that far!"

"He took lives, so he got what was coming to him," Mai said without turning around.

"Alice… Maybe saying that Mai is the same as you've always known her isn't entirely correct…" Yuki told the magician. "As you can see… She became a bit… How do you say it…? Hardcore… or extreme… over the years…"

The masked man in her grasp forcefully freed himself and then turned to run. Seeing this, Mai spread out her wings and flew after him at a fast speed, slashing him in the back with the same icicle. The man screamed as he fell over, and then Mai bent down and lifted up his head by his hair and said to him, "Tell why you did this, and I may spare you."

"It was to rescue the boss…!" the man replied in fear. "We did this in order to distract the police and lure most of them out of the police station he's imprisoned in! That way, some of us can sneak inside to free him! It was all a distraction to rescue him! Please…! Please spare me! Please!"

"No," Mai said before plunging the icicle through the top of his head, instantly killing him.

Yuki and Alice ran up to her, the latter with a look of horror and anger on her face. "Mai! He answered your question! Why didn't you spare him?!" she asked her.

"I said I may spare him, not will spare him," the witch in white emotionlessly replied as she stood back up.

"How… How did you become like this… Mai…?" Alice said in disbelief at the behavior of her "sister".

* * *

While the chaos went on outside, things were pretty quiet inside the police station, but the noise out there could be heard inside as well, albeit quieter. The remaining officers were making sure that the prisoners didn't try to escape, not to mention making sure that nobody tried to sneak in. There was fear of Human Being's subordinates being the ones behind the chaos outside as part of their plan to rescue their leader, so the police officers were armed and guarding the prison room Human Being was in with great caution.

The policemen inside the prison room suddenly heard cries coming from outside, so some of them quickly rushed out to see what was happening. The moment they were out there, they saw the place filled with purple smoke. The police officers there were choking and suffering, but some were already unconscious and seemingly dead on the floor. It wasn't until sniffing the purple mist did the former group of police realized that they were breathing in poison. Some covered their noses and mouths in time and managed to avoid breathing in too much to suffer, but some breathed in too much and fell to the floor while coughing in pain.

Suddenly, men wearing gas masks showed up and fired at all the police officers who were still moving with their machine guns until all of them were shot down. After that, the masked men went into the prison room and quickly shot down the remaining police officers before they could do anything.

Once all the policemen were dead or unconscious, one of the masked men went up to one of the fallen officers and took a set of keys from him. He then used one of the keys to unlock Human Being's prison room. He then said to his leader, "We'll escape through the backdoor, boss. It's less likely for us to be seen that way."

Human Being then heard the other prisoners shouting at him, begging to be freed as well. He looked at them for a while and then said to his men, "Free them as well."

"Are you sure?" one of them asked.

"Just do as I say!" he told him.

"Okay…" the subordinate said before using the other keys to unlock all the prison doors. The prisoners all ran out and were overjoyed that they were free at last, and they started praising Human Being nonstop.

"Thanks a lot, man!"

"You're our savior!"

"I thought I was going to be locked up in there forever! Thanks to you, I'm finally free!"

"I'm willing to serve you for life!"

All the prisoners were thanking him and asking if they could accompany and serve him, as they wanted to repay him for the "kindness" he showed them. "Very well," Human Being said with a nod. "This world rejected you and did not approve your way of doing things, even though you are simply acting according to your nature. From now on, we shall work together to show these people the consequences of going against their natures! We will let them know that they've made a huge mistake!"

"Yeah!" all the prisoners shouted while raising their fists into the air.

* * *

Things had started to settle down a bit in the way that most people were not running around in panic. Most of them were trying to put out the fire and helping the injured. The scene was definitely more organized then before.

"It has to be them for sure!" Reimu said in frustration as she walked down the road. "I was hoping that this wouldn't happen, but guess what?!"

Reimu carefully maneuvered around the people, but then she bumped into Medicine. The shrine maiden freaked out and moved back from her while saying, "Watch where you're going! You're not someone anyone wants to come in contact with, what with your poisonous body!"

"I'm hoping that people come in contact with me more often, though," the living doll said to her. "And if they die because of that, that's even better."

"Geez… You're twisted, you know that?" Reimu said to her in disgust. "Yeah, yeah, you hate humans and want to liberate dolls for them… As long as I'm around here, you're not going to achieve something like that."

"Which is why I see you as a roadblock to fulfilling my goal," Medicine said to her. "Someday, I will make us dolls rule over the likes of you. You shall all regret the day you threw us away, simply because we're old."

"Say whatever you want… It's not like you can actually pull it off anyway," Reimu said before heading on her way.

"By the way," Medicine said to her, "that person who was imprisoned recently just escaped. I saw him leaving the police station through the backdoor with his men."

Reimu turned to him with a look of surprise and said, "What?!"

"Exactly what I told you," the doll told her.

Reimu growled in frustration. "Grrrrr… I knew this would happen, but I wish that it wouldn't… I'm going to make sure that he never hears the end of this! Which way did he go?"

Medicine pointed down the road, in the direction of one of the village's exits. "Judging from the direction I saw them heading for, it's probably the forest over there."

"Thanks for the direction," Reimu said before taking flight in that direction.

* * *

Human Being, his subordinates, the escaped inmates managed to make it out the village without anyone seeing them, or so they thought. "Where are Takeshi and Souta?" Human Being asked his men.

"I contacted them just now," one of them replied, "but they didn't answer at all. Either they dropped their cell phones or got caught…"

"We'll look into this tomorrow," Human Being said. "We should find a place to hide ourselves first."

"Hey you!" shouted a female's voice. Recognizing the voice, Human Being turned around to face Reimu. "You've gone far enough! I was hoping that things wouldn't be like this at all, but it seems that you always want to cause a scene wherever you go!"

"An easy way to break out of prison is to cause a riot to distract and terrify the people," Human Being told her. "The chaos and confusion caused by the panicking crowd is the perfect opportunity for convicts to slip away unnoticed."

With a look of anger on her face, the shrine maiden slowly approached Human Being, and his men pointed their guns at her to ready to open fire if she was going to do anything to him, but he said to them, "Hold your fire and move away. I'll deal with her. Nobody interferes unless I give the word."

"But boss…" one of them said, but he got interrupted by his leader, who told him to follow his orders and leave, so he and the others did as told. They moved a bit of a distance away and watched from their new locations, but they made sure that they were ready to rush forward to help their boss when needed.

Human Being also walked in the direction of the approaching Reimu, and he said, "Am I correct in saying that this is the first time you're facing a completely ordinary human being? In the past, you've only faced demons, mythical beings, and humans with supernatural powers of some kind. If you think that I'm going to be a cakewalk because of this, then I advise you to think again. You will be surprised by the things that a normal person can do!"

"Like I care!" Reimu said before suddenly bringing down her gohei onto his head with a powerful whack, and then she spun around and smacked him across the face with the gohei. Finally, she gave him a kick to the abdomen that pushed him back a few steps. The shrine maiden ran up to him attack with her gohei again, but Human Being caught it and then forcefully moved the arm holding it to the side before punching her across the face.

Reimu removed her hand from his grip and then moved a few steps back before running at him to attack with kicks, but Human Being managed to skillfully block every single one of them with his hands. He caught her foot after blocking a few times and flung her to the side, but she managed to land on her feet.

Kicking off the ground hard, the shrine maiden shot through the air fast and rammed into him using her shoulder. The man fell on his back as Reimu flew over him and turned around before landing. She jumped above him and tried to hit him with a dive kick, but he rolled to the side in time. When Reimu's foot touched the ground, Human Being swiped his hand at it to knock her down.

Before Reimu could sit back up, Human Being lifted her up by the collar and gave her a headbutt that knocked her back several steps, and while she was recovering from the blow, he walked up to her and punched her across the face. Reimu fell to the ground and grunted in pain while wiping blood off her mouth using her detached sleeves. The man walked up in front of her and said, "Didn't expect things to be this tough, didn't you? I told you that you should think again if you think things really would be easy!"

"I haven't gotten serious yet!" Reimu angrily said as she quickly got up and punched him in the abdomen. The man grunted and bent over in pain, and then Reimu roundhouse kicked him across the face. When Human Being stood back up properly, she went up to him and punched him multiples. However, he eventually parried one of her punches and quickly punched her hard in the abdomen.

The shrine maiden coughed in pain while slowly walking away with her hands on the spot that got punched. Human Being caught her by the hair from behind and then forcefully shoved her forward, and she fell down a small ledge and tumbled onto the dirt below. Reimu grunted in pain as she turned around and angrily eyed the man, who was standing on the ledge and looking down at her. She threw a pair of amulets at him, but he swiftly ducked underneath them and then jumped down in front of the shrine maiden.

He lifted her up by the collar once again and said to her, "Not feeling so powerful anymore, aren't you? If this was a battle in the air, you might fare better. The fact that you've been fighting in the sky most of your time has made your skills fighting on the ground worse. I will, however, admit that you do have skills. With skills like this, you can go pretty high up in a martial arts tournament."

Reimu grunted in anger before quickly pulling out a needle to stab Human Being in the shoulder. The man let go of her while crying in pain, and then Reimu punched him across the face. "Demon Buster!" she shouted as she took out and threw several paper amulets at him, blasting him constantly.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The man walked out from the back of the explosion backwards while coughing from the smoke left behind. Reimu suddenly charged through the smoke and punched and kicked him rapidly until he was pushed against a tree. The shrine maiden shouted as she pulled back her fist to punch him, but he got out of the way in time, so she ended up punching the tree. While she managed to break the surface of the tree bark, she injured her fist doing so as well and cried in pain.

Human Being suddenly pushed her head from behind to bang her forehead against the tree. Grabbing her by the hair, Human Being flung her to side. When Reimu turned around, he got above her and punched her in the face over and over mercilessly nonstop. When he was done, he lifted her up by the arm and judo slammed her behind himself. After that, he twisted her arm. A sickening crack and a scream of agony was heard right afterwards. "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Human Being kicked her in the side to roll her over, and then he stomped her in the back and said to her, "I can kill you right here and right now, you know? However, I want you to watch this world you want to protect fall apart. My men and I will unleash chaos the likes you people have never seen before, and you shall witness everything and grieve at the fact that you could not do anything to save the land you are responsible for the ensuring the safety of. Psychological tortures are sometimes more painful and terrifying physical tortures, but I'd also like to see how much physical pain you can endure as well!"

Human Being raised his feet and stomped her in the back again with a stronger force, and Reimu felt as if her spine was broken. While the shrine maiden was screaming in pain, he kicked her in the side to roll her over again, and then he grabbed her leg and bent it forward with such a force that it temporary looked like a "bird's leg" before returning to its normal position.

As if that wasn't enough, Human Being grabbed Reimu's head and forcefully bent it to the side. However, he didn't use a lot of force in doing so, so while her neck didn't get broken, she still felt a large amount of pain and couldn't turn her head back to the front. Human Being dropped the pained and immobile shrine maiden to the ground and stomped her in the abdomen before saying to her, "Life is harsh if you try to change the course of nature and get yourself into trouble as a result. Had you decided to sit back and let everything unfold without interference, you wouldn't have suffered like this. Your belief that one must not give into evil natures and fight against them has nearly cost you your life. Do you regret your decision and belief now?"

Reimu turned her eyes to him and said in a voice full of anger, "Curse… you…! I'll… get you… for this…! I'll… kill… you…!"

"Looks like you haven't been taught enough yet," Human Being said to her. "However, it seems that your punishment is enough for the time being. If you think you still have what it takes to stop me and prove me wrong, then pray that you live through this first!"

With that, Human Being left to rejoin his subordinates, leaving the shrine maiden alone in the darkness of the forest. The sound of the criminals' footsteps eventually disappeared, and then Reimu tried to move. Her spine wasn't broken, so she was still able to get back up, but her broken leg made her fall back down, and the impact caused her neck to feel pain.

With tears running down her eyes, the shrine maiden tried to said as loud as she could, "Help… Someone… Please… Help… me…! Help…!"

All she could do now was to lie down there in silence and hope for rescue to come, not to mention hoping that no hungry demons would pass by and see her as a suitable dinner or midnight snack.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

I watched the first battle between Batman and Bane in the movie The Dark Knight Rises to get inspirations for Reimu's fight with Human Being, and the former, in turn, got its inspiration from the Batman comic Knightfall.

Perhaps I portrayed Reimu a bit too weak here. Considering that this is the first story in my Touhou series, I want there to be gradual character and power developments, so as time goes by, Reimu and some other characters will become stronger and stronger.


	6. Approaching Chaos

A BGM has been added to the first chapter. Please feel free to go ahead to see where and what it is.

**Chapter 6  
Approaching Chaos**

* * *

Reimu could not believe her eyes. Instead of lush green trees and the Human Village, which was visible in the distance, she was looking at burned down trees and broken houses. Dead bodies belonging to familiar and unfamiliar people were scattered all over the place.

"No…" the shrine maiden said in horror as sank to her knees. "This can't be… Gensokyo… It's… It's… I… I… failed… I failed… everyone…"

Suddenly, she felt something piercing her from behind, and when she looked down, she saw a knife sticking out of her abdomen. She looked back and saw Human Being staring at her with a knife plunged through her back. "You should've just stayed in your shrine and let things happen without your interference," he told her. "This is what happens if you try to mess with the course of nature, including the way human beings naturally behave."

Human Being then pulled out the knife from her back before taking out a gun to shoot her in the back of the head.

BANG!

* * *

"WAAAAAAA!" Reimu screamed as she shot up from bed, only to feel a large amount of pain in her neck that caused her to fall back onto her pillow. "Ow!"

"Reimu! You're awake at last!" Marisa, who had her face above hers, said in happiness. "Boy! I was worried that it's going to take forever for you to wake up again!"

Reimu shifted her eyes around the place to observe the room before asking, "Where am I?"

"This is Eientei, in the sickroom where Eirin keeps her patients," Marisa told her. "I found you in a battered state somewhere outside the Human Village, and with the help of Alice and her sisters from Makai, we brought you here."

"Alice's sisters?" Reimu curiously asked, and then Alice, Yuki, and Mai showed up beside her bed. "Oh, it's you two."

"It's been a while!" Yuki cheerfully said while waving at her. "How are you feeling?"

"Horrible…" the shrine maiden replied. "Not from seeing you, mind you… What are the two of you doing outside Makai?"

"We came to see Alice after hearing about dangerous criminals going on rampage out here," Yuki told her. "Didn't expect to run into an incident from them so soon, though…"

Just then, Eirin came into the room. "Oh, you're awake," she said to Reimu. "It's a good thing that your friends brought you here for treatment. Your wounds aren't life-threatening, mind you, but it's still important to get them treated. You have several broken bones, but using a special kind of medicine that I made and injected into you, they will heal quickly. Still, a few days rest is required for you to fully recover."

"Thanks," Reimu said to her.

"What happened?" Eirin asked her. "It's not like you to lose to a fight and be in a battered state like that. I take that your opponent is a really tough one?"

"I fought the leader…" Reimu said. "Human Being… I underestimated him… a lot…"

"You lost to that guy…?" Marisa asked in disbelief. "Is he really that strong?"

"Ayaya! So the shrine maiden fell to the hands of an ordinary human!" said a familiar voice. "My! How the mighty has fallen! I wonder if this will make a good news article. Can't wait to see the public's reaction to this!"

Hearing the voice and what was said sent chills down Reimu's spine. She couldn't shift her eyes far enough to the side to see Aya, but she could tell by the voice that it was her. She angrily cursed herself for letting her hear this. If there was one person she wanted to keep her loss a secret from, it would be her. "What… What are you doing here, Aya…?" Reimu asked.

"Eirin said I need to rest here for a few days in order to fully recover," Aya told her from her bed. "And I know what you're thinking: you're afraid that I'm going to spread this news to everyone once I leave this place. This would definitely make quite a bit of a headline! The shrine maiden that is strong enough to take down goddesses lost to an ordinary human from the outside world!"

"You better not tell anyone about this!" Reimu said to her in a threatening tone.

"Oh, you know the way I do things," Aya said to her with a sly smile. "Maybe I can consider keeping this a secret… if you… Well, let's see what you can do for me if you want me to keep it a…" Suddenly, a Mai held a knife made of ice in front of her neck. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

"I'll silence her for you permanently if you want to," Mai said to Reimu.

"Whoa! Hold on there! No need to go that far, do you?!" Marisa said to the white witch.

"What does Mai plan to do?" asked Reimu, as she couldn't see what was going on.

"Slit her throat and end her life," Mai replied.

"Um… There's no need to go that far…" Reimu told her.

"Fine… I won't report this to the public… Please take your knife away… Please…" Aya said in fear, and then Mai pulled the ice knife away.

"We need to talk, Mai," Alice sternly said to Mai, and then she turned to Reimu. "So… if you'll excuse us… We'll be taking our leave, considering that you seem to be doing fine at the moment."

"Okay," Reimu said to her. "Be careful out there, however. Human Being and his men are on the loose, so you're likely to run into them."

"Don't worry; we'll protect Alice!" Yuki told her. "She may not be that good of a fighter, but Mai and I are definitely pros at it!"

"Please don't treat me as if I'm completely defenseless…" said Alice, offended.

* * *

Alice and her two "sisters" were up in the sky above Eientei, flying in the direction of the Forest of Magic. "Mai, when did you become like this?" Alice asked the white witch. "I know that you're not a good apple back in the days, but to become murderous like this… Isn't that a bit too big of a leap?" Mai didn't say anything at all. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yes," the white witch replied.

"Then say something! Give me an explanation for your behavior!" Alice demanded her. "Mistress Shinki surely doesn't approve of your behavior, does she?"

"Mistress Shinki did lecture her regarding this already," Yuki told her. "You see, there was an instance where Mai badly mutilated some troublemakers who annoyed the neighborhood constantly. Shinki lectured her regarding this, but none of those words seem to have gone into her head… Once, Mai killed a guy who was caught escaping a house after robbing it… It horrified the onlookers…"

"She did that?!" Alice said in disbelief.

"Mistress Shinki was furious with her and punished her… Gave her some good slapping to the face and then locked her in her house for days…" Yuki continued. "However, as you can testify for yourself when she came here, she didn't change at all… As for why she became like this… Well, honestly… I have no idea either… As time went by, she changed…"

* * *

It was a new day when Mystia was knee deep in a river, staring with caution through the crystal clear water for lampreys. When she spotted one swimming close to her leg, likely in an attempt to latch onto her to suck her blood, she swung down her hands with lightning reflexes and, just like that, caught the eel-like fish before it had the chance to come in contact with her or get away. She then flung it into a basket she placed at the river bank, where it joined and wriggled around with the lampreys she previously caught.

"That should be enough," Mystia thought while looking at the basket, which was full of lampreys. "Yep, that's enough for today!" After washing her face with the river's water, she got onto dry ground, wiped her legs dry with a towel she brought along, and then walked away with the basket carried on her back.

While walking down the forest path, she thought she heard the voice of someone talking. Curious, she went in the direction the sound was coming from, and she eventually came across someone familiar spying on something from behind a tree. "Wriggle!"

The girl with semi-spiky green hair pointing mostly downwards and insect antennas on her head turned around. "Oh, it's you, Mystia."

Mystia went up to the firefly demon and was going to ask her what she was doing when the latter told her to be quiet. Judging from what Wriggle was doing, Mystia figured it was best that none of them get seen by whoever was up ahead, so she stood close to her and peeked out as well. Standing on a rock in a relatively large clearing was Human Being, and gathered in front of him were what Wriggle and Mystia determined to be demons, some resembling humans and some looking like monsters and animals.

"You all have your natural way of behaving," Human Being said to them while moving his arms around in the air slightly. "Why must you allow laws and ethics to hold you back? Demons are creatures of the wild, and those of the wild have no reason to restrain themselves to the laws of civilized ones! In fact, why even make laws in the first place? Life exists to kill one another! This is a world where one struggles to become stronger than anyone else, and to do that, taking the lives of others is required!

"Demons are obviously superior to humans, and surely you can testify it yourselves. In a fair match, a demon would obviously overpower a human. Because of this, why are you allowing yourselves to be restricted by human laws? You shall not attack humans and eat them, because demon exterminators will come after you? Nonsense! You are demons! You stand to no law! You're supposed to fight back against those people!

"You do realize that these humans are holding you back and forcing you to live the kind of life they want and not what you want? This is just like telling a cat not to scale walls, chase mice, and scratch things! Don't you want to be able to live the way your natural instincts are? If that's the case, you should rebel against the humans and show them that you are not to be messed with! Unleash your true potentials and show them what you are capable of! You have every right to behave the way your truly are meant to be!"

Human Being's speech was convincing to the demons, and all of them raised their arms into the air while shouting in agreement.

Behind the tree, Wriggle said, "That guy has a point… But I'm not sure if I want to get myself into trouble from doing this… Honestly saying, human flesh is not part of my diet, so it's not like I feel restrained from not being able to eat one…"

"As someone who ate humans before, I have to agree that it's sometimes hard for me to hold back," Mystia said. "Unfortunately, it's hard to attack and eat a human and then get away with things without trouble nowadays, what with the police and demon exterminators looking into these matters and then going after the culprits…"

"So… what do you think…?" Wriggle asked her.

"Don't know… Maybe we should just watch how things unfold first…" Mystia suggested.

* * *

Kara was flying through the air, looking for news report to gather so that she could publish in Bunbunmaru's newspaper. Considering that the most notable news currently was the escape of Human Being and the attack on the village yesterday, she figured that it would be a good idea if she tried to look into where the criminal boss was hiding at the moment.

Like Aya, she had superb hearing, so while soaring through the air, she paid close attention to the sounds at the bottom to see if she could hear anything that alluded to those criminals. She was flying across the clearing where Human Being made his speech. Thinking that she heard something suspicious, she stopped to pay attention to the voices down below, but she dared no to go any lower in fear of being spotted.

At the clearing below, all the demons were gone; only Human Being and his men were left. "Boss, what exactly is the reason for sending those demons to cause havoc in the Human Village?" one of his men asked him.

"Not that we are concerned about the wellbeing of the people there," another one asked, "but the speech you gave them may very well put us in danger too! What if the demons come after us too?"

"I wouldn't worry too much about them if I were you, considering that all life here is going to disappear soon," Human Being told them. "It was merely to give us the opportunity to set up and detonate the gas bomb without anyone being aware of it. The attack at the village will surely raise the awareness of most of the population here, and while they are too focused on trying to save the village or joining the feeding frenzy, we will set up the gas bomb, and once it detonates, the poison will spread all over the place and wipe out all life. Since we have made preparations for this, we will be the only ones alive once this is all over."

The sound of throat-clearing was heard next to him. "Ahem."

"Oh, and her too," Human Being added after hearing that sound.

Kara was horrified to hear what Human Being said, and because of the feminine voice she heard earlier, she dropped altitude a bit and squinted to see if she could see who made that voice. After finding out who it was, a shocked look appeared on her face.

* * *

Reimu was bored on her bed, and as much as she was bored, she preferred this and not Aya constantly asking her questions about how things were out there. Aya was one to be up-to-date with current events, so being confined to bed wasn't pleasing to her, as she wasn't able to get hold of news out there. Because Kara couldn't always come to provide her with news, she thought this would be the perfect opportunity to hear straight from the shrine maiden's mouth about the minor things that had happened around these days.

"So what's the latest on Mystia's lamprey menu?" Aya asked the annoyed shrine maiden.

"Don't know; haven't ate there for weeks already," Reimu replied. "And please, stop asking me already! I've been answering a lot of pointless questions already!"

"Oh, come on! You know how boring it is not to be able to go out there and learn about current events for me! Please help keep a poor girl like me stay up-to-date… Pretty please…?" Aya begged her.

"No," Reimu replied.

Aya continued to beg, and then a door opened. A rabbit demon looked into the room and said to Aya, "Your colleague is here to see you."

"Kara, right? Let her in," Aya said, so the rabbit demon let her colleague in.

Kara ran up next to Aya's bed and said in panic, "Bad news! You won't believe what I heard!"

"What is it?" Aya asked her.

"I take it has something to do with Human Being, right?" Reimu asked.

Kara turned around and saw her. "Oh, you're here too? What happened?"

"Just say it, okay…?" Reimu told her.

"Fine, then…" said Kara, and then she proceeded to tell them both everything she heard from Human Being, as well as the person he saw with him. When she was done, both Reimu and Aya were horrified and had looks of disbelief on their faces.

"This… This can't be serious… right…?" Aya said. "You really did see her… with him…?"

"It's true! It's definitely her!" Kara told her.

"We can look into why she is working with him later," Reimu said. "Right now, Gensokyo and the Human Village is top priority! We have to stop those demons from attacking the humans at the village and also stop Human Being from detonating the gas bomb! I must go and stop them at once!" She instantly got out of bed, only to fall onto the floor because of her injuries. "Ouch!"

Eirin stepped into the room just as she tried to get out of bed and witnessed this. "You're not supposed to get out of bed yet!" She went over to help Reimu back onto the bed.

"The Human Village is in danger, and soon, Gensokyo will be in danger as well!" Reimu told her. "As the protector of Gensokyo, it is my responsibility to protect this place! I must go out there at once!"

"What can you do with a body like this?" Eirin said to her. "You will only kill yourself if you try to fight now!"

"Then do something! You're the doctor, so you should be able to patch me up in a short amount of time! Take out your best medicine and return me to full health!" Reimu told her.

"Do you realize that you may actually be asking for a death wish?" Eirin told her. "Sure, I may have a medicine that is capable of healing you in an instant, but because of its side effects, I do not wish to use it."

"Wait a minute? You have something like that?" Aya curiously asked.

Eirin turned to her and nodded. "Yes, I made a medicine that is capable of curing all sickness and injuries the moment it is consumed, but it comes with a relatively heavy side effect. Unless there are no better alternatives, I will not use that at all."

Suddenly, Reisen burst into the room in panic. "Big news, Mistress Eirin!"

"What happened?" Eirin asked her.

"I was on my way to the Human Village to sell your medicine, and then I spotted a large amount of demons rushing into the village to attack people!" she said. "I have never seen such a scale of demon attack before! It's really horrible!"

Everyone in the room widened their eyes in horror upon hearing this. "So it really did happen!" Reimu said.

"Which means Human Being must be setting up the bomb right now!" Aya said. "We have to stop him; otherwise, it's not just the population of the Human Village that will disappear!"

"But we have to do something about the village too!" Kara said.

"On the bright side, it's not like there is nobody in the village that cannot fight for the villagers," Aya said. "Kara, you should go and find out where Human Being is placing the bomb at once! Also, find Nitori. I'm sure she definitely has a way of defusing the bomb, so we definitely need her at a time like this!"

"I'll get to it right away!" Kara said. "I think I also have an idea where the bomb is being set up!"

"Then get to it!" Aya told her "Make sure to report back if anything big comes up again!" Kara nodded before rushing out of the room.

After she was gone, Reimu said in her head, "Marisa… Anyone… Please… Fill in for me… Please…"

* * *

What Reisen said could not be any truer. The Human Village was currently in a situation that was anything but peaceful and tranquil. Humans were running for their lives from the demons that were rampaging through the place, tearing down buildings and attacking and devouring humans they got their hands on.

All it was took was a speech from a normal human to get them to do something like this…

A middle-aged man ran in panic through the village, seeking refuge, when he came across a young blond girl dressed in a black and white dress. "Are you someone I can eat?" asked the girl, Rumia.

Hearing this was more than enough for the man to tell that she was a demon. Screaming at the top of his voice, he turned around the run. Unfortunately, Rumia moved at a speed faster than him. Flying at the man, she caught him from behind and bit into his shoulder hard. The man fell down, screaming as the innocent-looking demon continued to dig her teeth into his flesh.

Not everyone in the village was defenseless, however. In a place where demons were widespread, one had to know self-defense, so some of the villagers had skills in demon extermination. Such people were busy defending themselves from the demons and also fighting for the ones who were defenseless. However, the sheer amount of demons made work hard for them, so some of the exterminators eventually fell to them.

"Spiritual Birth: First Pyramid!" Keine shouted as she raised a spell card into the air. A translucent pyramid made of blue-colored energy surrounded her, and then it exploded, creating a shockwave that blasted away the demons that were surrounding her. Another one, a humanoid beast with pinkish skin and a single horn on his head, ran toward her from the front.

Keine held out a spell card to the side and shouted, "Land Sign: Three Sacred Treasures—Sword!" This caused the card to transform into a sword. When the demon was close, she quickly jumped to the side and slashed him in the waist. The demon roared in pain, but he was far from defeated. He turned to her and swung his massive arm at her, but she dodged it by jumping back and then ran forward to thrust the sword through his abdomen. She then jumped at his head. She pulled back her head and then delivered a devastating headbutt to his forehead.

SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

Despite the difference in size between them, Keine was able to send the demon flying quite a bit of a distance with her headbutt. He flew back into a house and crashed through it. The sword impaled through the demon's abdomen then returned to Keine's hand by itself and changed back into a spell card. She looked around to see that there were still several demons terrorizing the villagers. "This is not good… At this rate, everyone is going to get killed…" she said. "We need more help…"

A frog-like demon suddenly leaped down from a roof behind her, but Mokou flew into it from the side, hitting him with a powerful flaming kick. The demon's body caught on fire as he went flying to the side until he landed. Keine turned to her and said, "Thanks for the help!"

"You're welcome, but be more careful of your surroundings," Mokou told her. "These guys are serious, so unless we act more seriously, we're never going to defeat them or save anyone."

"Right," Keine said. "As the guardian of the Human Village, it is my duty to make sure that everyone here is safe! I'm sure we'll receive help from the likes of the Myouren Temple and the Moriya Shrine soon. The police are in this with us well. In the meantime, let's try our best to defend everyone."

"You don't have to tell me that. I'm on it already!" Mokou told her.

* * *

Using her jutte, Kotohime delivered a powerful whack to the head of a demon that resembled in every way a brown shoulder-length haired teenage girl dressed in casual boyish clothing. She then struck her in the face two times before forcefully turning her around and bent her arms in a painful way. The police commissioner quickly handcuffed her in a moment's notice and then pushed her away before swinging her jutte to the side to knock away an approaching demon that looked like an anthropomorphic boar.

She then turned to her fellow police officers, who were busy fighting the demons and leading the people to safety, "Is everything all right there?"

"We're doing fine!" a police officer who was leading the villagers to safety loudly replied. "You don't have to worry about us!"

"Hang in there! The Hakurei shrine maiden will definitely come soon to help us!" she said. If only she knew better about Reimu's current situation...

* * *

Kara was busy flying around Youkai Mountain, looking for signs of Nitori. She was hoping to run into her on the surface. Because she didn't know where any of the entrances to the lab were, it would be a problem if the kappa was down there at the moment.

Luck was with her, as she spotted Nitori sitting on a rock at a river bank, happily enjoying cucumber while fishing. Kara landed next to her, and Nitori said to her, "Oh, it's you, Kara. What's up?"

"Haven't you heard that the Human Village is under attack by lots of demons?" Kara told her. "It seems that they were coaxed by Human Being into do this!"

"What?!" Nitori said in shock.

"He's actually using this as an opportunity to set up a gas bomb that will wipe out all life in Gensokyo!" Kara continued. "Because of this, Aya sent me to look for you, since you know how to defuse bombs."

"This is horrible! We have to stop him at once!" Nitori said. "Wait a minute… You said it was a gas bomb, right?"

"Yeah," Kara replied with a nod.

"I just remembered something…" Nitori said while placing her fingers underneath her chin. "A fellow engineer of mine was working on an air freshening machine for some time, and it's a large one at that. The last time I checked, she's almost finish with it… I'm sure that air freshening machine should be able to purify the poison gas released by the bomb…"

"Wouldn't it be a better idea to stop the bomb from exploding instead?" Kara asked.

"I may have skills in defusing bombs, but suppose I fail and the bomb goes off? We can use the air freshener to make the poison gas safe instead! It's always good to have backup plans, you know?" Nitori said, and then she took out a cell phone. "I'll contact her to see how things are and then take it to where we are. I'll go with you to the location of the bomb in the meantime. Do you know where the bomb is being set up?"

"I don't know, but something tells me that it's in that place…" Kara said.

* * *

Eleven of Human Being's men were in the middle of a field with their truck, and they were unloading a large spherical object from the back of the vehicle. They rolled it to the middle of the field and then positioned upright, making sure that the part of the ground it was one was able to hold it in place and not let it roll away. After that, one of the men who helped moved it opened its side and tingled with the circuits inside.

Once he was done, a countdown appeared on a small screen at the side of the bomb, counting down from an hour and fifteen minutes.

"Okay, let's move to a safer distance," that man said. "As long as we're not close to it, the explosion won't hurt us, since it consists strictly of gas. Make sure to wear your gas masks and stay inside the vehicle. We also have to make sure that nobody comes to mess with the bomb as well. We must keep good watch of it until time is up!"

Meanwhile, on top of a cliff that was at the very side of the field, Human Being was watching from atop of it his men getting back into the truck and driving away.

"In about an hour and fifteen minutes," he said, "Gensokyo will become a poisonous wasteland. It'll only be the immortals, and maybe cockroaches, that are still roaming around. Oh, and us as well. After all, it would be silly of us to not prepare ourselves for this event and get ourselves killed." He then turned around to look at someone. "You are soon about to witness the end of the land you are born in. You should take one last good look at the beautiful scenery around you before that happens."

Sitting behind him were two of his men, and in between them was Marisa, beaten up, bounded, and glaring at the criminal leader angrily. "You… You won't get away with it…!" she said.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

You probably may have figured this out, but this story is coming to a conclusion soon. I never intended for this story to be a long one. Though short, I still hope that you enjoyed everything you've read so far.

Regarding the way the characters perform attacks… I'm going to make it like in Touhou: Journey to the Smasher Beyond, where spell cards are only used for certain moves. Having every single move coming out from spell cards strikes me as… inconvenient and strange… Not sure if those are good terms…

Just so you know, there is a form of martial art called Juttejutsu, and as you can tell from its name, it involves fighting with juttes. My version of Kotohime is a pro at it.

Wriggle's design in my series is taken from the artist Cato (Monocatienus). I think semi-spiky hair fits her perfectly, as it makes her look more like a girl! Please be warned that you will come across NSFW stuff if you are planning to look up that artist's pictures.

Lastly, Human Being has nine subordinates. Two of them were killed by Mai, and six more joined him when they were released from prison. This raises the number to thirteen.


	7. Rise of Hope

Reviews seem to be few in numbers nowadays, or maybe it's just the Touhou section? I sure miss the days when my SSB stories got lots of reviews… I would appreciate it if you review my story more, but it's up to you.

**Chapter 7  
Rise of Hope  
**

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

Not too long after Kara discovered a shocking revelation regarding who she saw with Human Being and leaving to report it to Aya, the criminals got into their truck to get ready to leave and began their plan.

Not all of them had gotten into the truck when someone called out to them. "I heard everything you said!" the voice said. "I won't let you do such a thing-ze!" They turned around and saw that it was Marisa.

"So the witch has appeared," Human Being said.

Marisa walked closer to them and then pointed her hakkero at them. "You people are becoming more and more dangerous by the minute! I simply cannot sit back and let you do things as you wish any longer! I'll make you pay for everything you did! This is also for Reimu!"

All of a sudden, a beam shot out of the truck and in her direction, but she saw it and managed to graze it in the nick of time. "Whoa! What the?!" she said in shock. Suddenly, she felt her leg being pierced. "AH!" While she was trying to comprehend what the beam that was about to hit her was, Human Being had used this opportunity to shoot her in the leg with his handgun. The witch cried in pain as she fell down and placed her hands over the wound on her left leg. "Ugh… It hurts…"

Human Being walked up to her and then gave her a kick to face. After that, he told his men to bind her up and take her into the truck.

_END OF FLASHBACK_

* * *

"Just what do you hope… to accomplish by poisoning all life in Gensokyo…?" Marisa asked Human Being. "Not to mention fulfilling her dream… Knowing her, she'll more than likely turn against you once you're done with this… Do you really think that you can get away with this unscratched?"

"Why am I doing this? Simple," Human Being told her. "This place is too peaceful and does not know what it is like to be in an era where corruption and chaos plague the world. Long have you been separated from the outside world that you do not realize how it is like to face hardship every single day. Poverty, political corruption, bankruptcy, thievery, terrorism, and even natural disaster… Life is harsh. To live is to suffer. There is no such thing as life without suffering."

"I'd be more than willing to live in a world without suffering…" Marisa said.

"And when you finally encounter suffering, what can you do?" Human Being asked her. "It is through suffering that people thrive and become stronger. They know what to expect, so they know how to counter it. People who are too relaxed and carefree will in the end be destroyed when suffering comes. This is just like a student having too much free time before examinations and thus failing to get a good score in the end. The consequences of being too lax and then encountering suffering is even more suffering.

"Suffering is part of life. It is something that everyone has to face, and it doesn't matter whether you're good or bad. Those who think of living in a world without suffering is delusional and a daydreamer; such a person should not deserve to live or be taken seriously at all! While your world has your own problems regarding demons, the things you face pale in comparison to the things that the outside world faces. As an outsider, I can assure you that this place is like heaven compared to the outside."

"And that's not a good thing?" Marisa asked him. "What kind of person enjoys suffering and wants to live in a place like that?! Oh yeah, you're the kind of person who believes that everything and everyone should live according to nature. It is in the nature of humans to sin, and now you're saying that it is natural for there to be suffering, so you're pissed off that this place is so peaceful and like a heaven that you want to destroy it! The way I see it, you're someone who never had a slice of heaven in your life and have encountered nothing but misfortunes! Because you never got to have good things in your life, nobody else can have good things!"

"Teach her some lessons," Human Being said to his men, and then they kicked Marisa and also hit her with the back of their guns multiple times.

After being knocked over on her front, Marisa glared at Human Being and said, "You're a madman! You won't be getting away with this! If you think you can destroy Gensokyo so easily, you're wrong! You'll be sorry that you messed with the people here!"

Human Being turned in the direction of the field and said, "You have about an hour and fifteen minutes to prove to me what you said is right. Consider this a trial to see whether or not you people can overcome sufferings! As for your second question…"

* * *

"I… I can't believe it…" Kara said after finding out that Marisa had been captured. She was with Nitori and Hatate, the latter whom they encountered on the way here, were up in the air above the field, and thanks to Kara's hearing, she was able to hear Marisa speaking.

"I really can't imagine Marisa losing to someone like him…" Nitori said in disbelief. "That guy must be very strong…"

"She doesn't seem to be in danger at the moment," Hatate said, "so I think we should go and deal with the bomb first."

"Aya told me to report to her anything worthy, so I'm going back to Eientei to report to her this," Kara said.

"Okay, you go on ahead," Nitori said. "Maybe you find someone to help Marisa as well. In the meantime, the both of us will go down there and deal with the bomb. I've contacted my colleague and told her to bring over the air-freshening machine once it's ready, in case I'm not able to disable the bomb in time."

After deciding on what to do, Kara flew in the direction of Eientei, while Nitori and Hatate descended toward the field. The latter two saw the truck parked quite a bit of a distance from the bomb, so they landed on the other side of the bomb to not get spotted by them and then approached the bomb on foot.

Nitori got in front of the bomb and looked at the screen. "We have about an hour and eleven minutes before it explodes… That should be enough time," Nitori said, "and I was right when I believed that they would use the nuclear reactor's core as a bomb… It's possible for them to remove the radioactive substances inside and replace them with poison gas. The explosion will be big enough to cover the whole of Gensokyo, but the damage done is lesser because it consists mostly of gas. Even so, the loss of lives will be huge…"

"Quickly defuse it," said Hatate, looking in the direction of the truck. "I'll keep an eye on our surroundings."

"Okay," Nitori said as she opened the side of the bomb to start defusing it.

Hatate continued looking at the truck, and then she noticed people coming out of it and running in their direction. "Looks like we're spotted already… Don't worry; I'll handle them! You just do your job."

"I'll leave them to you!" Nitori said while working on the bomb.

Hatate took out her cell phone and used its camera function to lock onto the approaching the criminals. Once she had a three of them targeted, she pressed the call button to make energy projectiles shoot out from the lens, blasting them. "Continuous Shooting: Rapid Shot!"

BANG BANG BANG!

After they were shot and fell back, the remaining criminals pointed their guns at Hatate and readied to fire, but moving at a fast speed, the tengu flew in their direction and created a bright flash from her cell phone's lens to blind them and also stop them from firing. Hatate slammed her fist into the abdomen of one of the criminals, and when the one standing next to her tried to shoot her, she quickly fired a shot at him.

When the remaining criminals tried to shoot her, she flew into the air and targeted each of them using her cell phone before shooting them down. The last criminal fired from his shotgun at her, but she grazed it and then shot him in the face.

With that, all the criminals were down. Hatate landed and looked around to make sure that they were really out cold. "Looks like that's all of them," she said. "This is too easy! And I'm not even that skilled in fighting! At least when compared to Aya…" Then she turned to Nitori. "How are things there?"

"This is more complicated than I thought…" she said. "However, I think I'm close to defusing it. By the way, don't let your guard dow…"

BAAAANG!

The sound of the explosion was accompanied by a scream, and hearing this, Nitori turned around to see what happened, and she was shocked to see Hatate charred on the grass. "HATATE!"

* * *

"What?! Marisa is captured by him?!" Reimu said in shock upon hearing Kara's news.

"It's true! It definitely is her that I saw and heard!" Kara told her with a nod. "I'm having a hard time believing it myself too!"

"Man… Even Marisa got beaten by him… Sakuya, Remilia, Byakuren… Just how strong is this guy…?" Aya wondered.

Eirin was also in the room when Kara delivered this news, and Reimu turned to the former and said, "Eirin! Give me the medicine you said right now! The one you said can instantly heal the user!"

"I told you there is a side effect to it," Eirin to her. "Why are you so desperate to recover at once? It's to rescue Marisa, right?"

"The whole of Gensokyo is in danger; I can no longer sit back and do nothing!" the shrine maiden told her. "I will not let injuries stop me! I must go and do something about this! Just what are the side effects to that medicine?"

"Four hours after consuming it, you will become very tired for about two days," Eirin said, "and your life span will be shortened by a few years too."

"That's all?" Reimu asked, and the Lunarian doctor nodded. "If that's the case, give it to me! It's not like having your life span shortened by a few years is going to make any difference! If I'm going to live up to eighty years old or something, it's no big issue!"

"Are you sure you want to take that medicine?" Eirin asked her. "Shortened life span may not be a big issue, but the fatigue that comes after four hours can be very painful."

"I don't care! Just give it to me now!" Reimu loudly said to her.

"Well, if you insist…" Eirin said as she left the room. She returned a short while later with a plastic bag containing red pills. "Here they are. Don't say I didn't warn you." The doctor went up next to her and gave her a single pill and then provided her with a cup of water.

After taking the pill, Reimu suddenly felt the pain on her body disappearing. "Whoa! I feel a lot better and stronger in an instant!" she said in surprise as she got out of bed. "Thanks a lot, Eirin!"

"All right, now go and do what you must do within four hours," Eirin told her. "After that, you should stay in bed if you want to avoid dropping dead out of fatigue. Trust me; it's going to be very painful four hours later."

"I can deal with that!" Reimu told her. "Anyway, where are my usual clothes?"

* * *

"Fujiyama Volcano!" Mokou shouted as she delivered a fiery punch to the face of a bull-like demon. A burst of fire suddenly erupted from her fist and sent him flying back in flames. A bat-like demon flew at her from behind, but she quickly spun around and swung her fiery arm at him to knock him away. She looked at Keine, who was fending off some demons, but her back was turned towards a pair of hairy imp-like demons that were pouncing at her. "Keine! Watch out!" She quickly shot one fireball from each of her hands to shoot them out of the air.

Keine sighed with relief and then said to the immortal, "Thanks a lot, Mokou!" Then she saw a demon resembling a man with pair of horns approaching the immortal from behind, so she quickly warned her.

The demon was suddenly caught by the neck from behind by Kotohime, and she forcefully pushed him to the side before striking him multiple times with her jutte. When the demon angrily lunged at her, she swiftly moved to the side and impaled him through the chest using the tip of her weapon. The demon cried in pain as he fell on his knees, and then Kotohime stomped him in the back hard to press him against the ground.

"Thanks for the help," Mokou said to the police commissioner.

"Don't let your guard down," Kotohime told her. "This is without doubt the worst incident regarding demon attacks that has ever happened. I wonder what made them launch a full-scale attack against this village in the first place…"

"Yeah, I've never seen something like this before…" Mokou said. "They're usually too afraid to get on the bad side of some of the more skilled demon exterminators here and also Reimu… Looks like they believe that there are powers in numbers that they decided to raid here like this… But if that's the case, they would've done it a long ago."

Kotohime looked around and saw that there were still some more demons. "There are still several of them… No time to let your guard down! We'll have to fight until they give up!"

Keine, Mokou, and Kotohime stood close to each other as the demons slowly closed in on them. "Much as I hate to admit it," Mokou said, "it's going to be tough trying to take on all of them alone… Where are your men anyway?"

"They're either fighting in other parts of the village or helping the villagers evacuate," Kotohime said. "I got separated from them during the chaos. I have to agree with you too… It's going to be tough for us to make it through this alive…"

Suddenly, they heard shouting and also saw the sight of demons flying into the air in the distance. The demons surrounding the trio turned to see what was happening, and they saw Minamitsu swinging around her anchor to knock away a horde of demons and Unzan punching the lights out of more.

"It's the folks from the Myouren Temple!" Keine said.

After Minamitsu and Unzan beat up the demons, Byakuren approached with the rest of her followers. Only Kyouko was absent, as she was back at the temple. Everyone looked at her as she said, "Much as I hate to do this, you all leave me with no choice. I tried to convince you already, but it seems that the words of Human Being have been implanted into your mind so strongly that you are determined to do this."

"We will no longer allow humans to rule over us!" a demon resembling an anthropomorphic lizard said. "We are the superior species, but we have been abiding to human laws for too long! It's time that we act the way we truly are meant to be!"

"Yeah!" the other demons said.

Byakuren shook her head in disappointment and grief. "Such a pity… I dislike violence and fighting. If possible, I wish to resolve all conflicts without the usage of violence, but it seems that there are times when such a thing is impossible… Please forgive me if I hurt you all too much…"

"You don't have to feel bad, Master Hijiri," Nazrin said to her. "You tried your best to convince them, but they refuse to listen, so they're getting what's coming to them."

"Right, Master Hijiri," Shou said with a nod. "Right now, we have no choice but to use force. Don't worry; I'm sure we can convince them to stop without going too far!"

"Good to know that we have reinforcement!" Keine happily said. "This should make things a lot easier!"

"Don't forget about us!" said a new voice. Everyone turned to the other side and saw Toyosatomimi no Miko and her followers, Futo, Tojiko, Seiga, and Yoshika, standing there. "It's only a matter of time before demons do something like this. This is exactly why you should exterminate them all before it happens. So much for trying to establish relationship between humans and demons, eh, Hijiri?"

"Great… Now things are going to get messy with them here…" Nazrin grumbled.

"I know you!" a demon resembling a human girl with sparrow wings. "You're always talking about how you want to get rid the likes of us! I'm going to get rid of you instead!" The demon charged in Miko's direction, but Yoshika jumped in front of the demon and, with a swing of her arm, sent her crashing through the building at the side.

Seiga floated next to the Chinese zombie and placed her hand on her shoulder. "Good work, Yoshika!"

Futo got into fighting stance and asked Miko, "Your orders, crown prince?"

"Exterminate all the demons," Miko replied with a smile.

* * *

Human Being was standing at the edge of the cliff, watching the scene that was currently happening at the field. Suddenly, he heard the sound of conflict going on coming from behind, so he turned around to see Reimu fighting the two subordinates who were accompanying him.

After hitting the chest of one of the criminals with her elbow, Reimu kicked the other one in the abdomen. The one who got hit in the chest tried to shoot her, but she disarmed her by forcefully pulling the gun out of his hand and then smacked him in the head with the back of it. When the other criminal tried to shoot her, she flung the gun at his mask to make him flinch, and then she rushed up to him and gave him an uppercut that sent him flying into the air and back.

When they were both out cold, Marisa said, "Awesome, Reimu!"

Instead of helping Marisa right away, the shrine maiden glared at Human Being, who said, "Well, it's a surprise that you managed to recover so fast. I take that it's because you have a certain skilled doctor here that this is possible, am I right?"

"Right, and thanks to her, I'm able to come here to beat the living daylight out of you for capturing and beating up my friend, convincing demons to attack the Human Village, and also trying to poison all of Gensokyo!" Reimu said to him in an angry voice. "This time, I'm going to defeat you!"

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

No, the demon with sparrow wings isn't Mystia.


	8. Shattering Spirit

Nice to see that I got three reviews in the previous chapter! Guess encouraging people to review works after all! Hope to see more reviews from fans like you!

**Chapter 8  
Shattering Spirit  
**

* * *

"So… Reimu…? Mind freeing me first?" Marisa asked Reimu, but the shrine maiden seemed to be ignoring her, as she walked away from her and headed toward Human Being instead. "Um… Reimu? Did you hear me? Hello? Reimu?"

When she was standing close to Human Being, the latter said, "What makes you think you can defeat me this time? Maybe you should've stayed in hospital until your wounds naturally healed themselves."

"I have no time to listen to your dumb and mindless ramblings about human nature and such! Save those for until I beat you!" Reimu angrily replied before swinging down her gohei at him, but he caught it and then shoved it to the side. Reimu tried to punch him with her other hand after that, but he caught her fist. She then tried to hit him in the side of the waist with her gohei, but he managed to catch that hand too.

With hands locked against each other, both sides struggled to overpower each other and moved around in a way that looked as if they were having a ballroom dance. In the midst of doing so, Reimu lifted her foot and kicked him back by the abdomen before taking out some paper amulets to throw at him. Human Being quickly flung himself to the side and then fired from his handgun after hitting the grass, but the shrine maiden swiftly dodged the bullets by stepping aside.

Human Being stood back up while continuing to shoot Reimu, but the shrine maiden approached him while sidestepping to avoid the bullets, and when she was close to him, she quickly disarmed him by hitting his hand from below to knock the handgun into the air. After that, she threw two punches at Human Being, both of which got blocked by him, and then spun once to strike him with her gohei. He managed to grab the gohei, but he failed to anticipate her performing a roundhouse kick at the same time, so he got hit in the side of the waist.

While he was in pain from getting kicked in that part, Reimu attacked with him with an uppercut to the chin using her gohei, which released blue energy when swung. The attack knocked Human Being into the air, and then the shrine maiden leaped into the air while performing multiple somersault kicks. "Divine Arts: Wind God Kick!"

KICK KICK KICK KICK KICK!

The last kick sent Human Being flying high into the air, where he eventually came back down with a powerful thud onto the grassy ground, which was soft enough to cushion his fall, though the fall still brought him pain. While the villain grunted in pain, the shrine maiden walked up to him and pointed her gohei at his face. "It's your loss!" she said to him. "Who said I wouldn't be able to defeat you this time?"

"You did well this time," Human Being said to him. "Naturally, people learn from their losses."

"It was my mistake underestimating you that time, but now that I know how good you really are, I had no reason to hold back," the shrine maiden told him. "However, I still didn't have to use my full power against you. This is more than enough to deal with someone like you!" She then lifted him up slightly by the collar. "All right! How in the world did you convince Medicine to cooperate with you?!"

* * *

Nitori coughed and gasped for air as purple, poisonous gas filled the atmosphere around her. Unfortunately for the kappa, she breathed in too much of it when it was launched at her, and the poison slowly weakened her body, as she lost her strength and fell to her knees. Her limbs trembled violently as she struggled to use them to keep her body from touching the grass. She slowly looked up at the person standing before her and said, "Why…? Why are you… doing this…?"

Standing in front of her was the poisonous doll demon, Medicine, looking down at her with a rather gloomy expression, and held in her right hand was Shou's miniature pagoda. The miniature doll that accompanied her all the time was floating next to her head. "Anyone who gets in my way of letting dolls rule the world is an enemy of mine," she replied.

* * *

"All it takes is some convincing to get her to comply," Human Being told Reimu. "When someone is dead serious about accomplishing, he will definitely want all the help he can get. Medicine is exactly that kind of person. Her desire for the liberation of dolls is so strong that she is more than willing to use any method to get the job done, even if it means to massacre the entire population of this place."

"Then have you considered the possibility of her turning against you?" Reimu asked him. "You know that Medicine doesn't like humans, and just because she decided to let you help doesn't mean she likes you. Knowing her, she'll likely turn against you after you helped her accomplish her goal. You're digging your own grave by helping her, don't you realize that?"

"All mortals die," Human Being replied. "It's only a matter of time. If death is bound to come to you, why do you fear doing something that may kill you? You are only delaying the inevitable. Dying early or dying late… It doesn't make a difference. Furthermore, what makes you think that I would consider keeping her at my side the whole time? I'll just put an end to her if she turns against me."

"You really are a twisted man…" Reimu said to him. "You do not fear death, do you?"

"Like I said just now," the man said to her, "death is natural, so why fear something that will eventually come?"

Unknown to Reimu, the two subordinates that the shrine maiden knocked out were back on their feet and slowly and quietly sneaking up to her from behind. When close, they quickly caught her by the arms and pulled her back. "Hey! What the?!" she gasped.

Despite getting injured from the fall, Human Being still managed to get back up at a fast speed, and while his men were holding back the shrine maiden, he kicked her in the abdomen a couple of times. He then took out a knife and tried to stab her, but she quickly kicked his hand from below to send the knife spinning into the air. It fell in her direction, so she pulled the arm of the man on her left over to her position in hope of letting the knife fall onto him and stab him. The criminal feared getting hit by the knife, so he quickly let go of her arm before it hit him, and the knife hit the grass.

With one arm free, Reimu quickly took out some needles and stabbed the hand of the other criminal to make him let go of her in pain. The shrine maiden then punched him in the face a couple of times before kicking him in the groin. The other criminal picked up the knife and tried to stab her in the back, but she spun out of the way and then struck him in the back of the neck with the side of her hand, followed by performing a sweep kick that made him fall on his back, and then she elbow slammed him in the stomach to knock him out.

She then turned to Human Being, who ran up to her and punched her across the face. Reimut took several steps back and then stretched forth her hand, which was holding a card, to create a wall of blue energy. "Cautionary Border!"

Human Being was going to punch her the second time when she created the wall, so he ended up punching it. He punched the wall multiple times to try to break through it, but he was unable to do so. "Dimensional Rift!" Reimu shouted as she used a spell card to make herself disappear into thin air and reappear in the air behind Human Being. She kicked him in the back of the head and knocked his head against the wall, and then she bounced back through the air, spinning once before landing.

The moment she landed, she slapped a paper amulet onto the back of her right hand and then pulled back her fist before running toward the criminal, who turned around to face her. "Shattering Spirit Punch!" Her fist glowed with blue spiritual energy before she unleashed a powerful punch at Human Being, who tried to block it with his hand, but because of the spiritual energy, the punch became too powerful for him to block, and it pushed him against the energy wall with such a force that the latter shattered.

SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

Human Being shot back through the air quite a bit of a distance before finally hitting the grass, and he coughed and grunted in pain before passing out.

Reimu took the paper amulet off the back of her hand and then sighed before saying, "And stay down this time." She then turned to Marisa just in time to see her spitting out socks from her mouth.

"Yuck! I have to give it to them for coming up with the idea of stuffing my socks into my mouth so that I can't shout for you to be careful when they tried to sneak up on you…" the witch said. "Ugh… I think I haven't washed this pair for a quite a while already… Yuck… Now I have to rinse my mouth like no tomorrow using the best mouthwash I can get my hands on… My mouth feels and tastes weird right now…"

"That's what you get for not keeping your house and your properties clean," Reimu told her before untying her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm all right. Just some scratches and bruises here and there, but they're no big deal," Marisa said. "Anyway, nice of you to be able to defeat all three of them, especially the leader! Looks like you got better since your last encounter with him!"

"I was holding back during our first encounter, which led to my defeat," Reimu told her. "Now that I didn't hold back that much, I'm able to defeat him with little effort. He's really not that tough. In case they get back up again, you go ahead and give them some good blasting from your hakkero." Suddenly, something came to her. "Oh yeah, the bomb! I almost forgot about it!"

* * *

Hatate was burned and unconscious on the grass, while Nitori had fallen to Medicine's poison. The doll demon looked at the timer on the bomb to see that there was only an hour left. Suddenly, she heard someone calling out to her from behind. "Hey you!"

Medicine turned around to face the person calling her, Kogasa.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

Short chapter this time… I hope you enjoyed it, though.

I know, the fight this time is mostly one-sided, but realistically speaking, Reimu trumps Human Being in every way if she doesn't bother holding back. Human Being is a normal human in every aspect after all, albeit a very resourceful and skilled one, but in the end, it makes more sense for him to be outmatched by someone who has supernatural and magical powers. If he is on the same level as comic book Batman, however… Nah, the rule of protagonists always winning will still allow Reimu to triumph in the end.


	9. Poisonous and Forsaken

**Random Pointless Rambling: **All of a sudden, people changed from insulting the Wii U to praising it, and it's all thanks to the latest Nintendo Direct. Can't wait for Super Smash Bros. 4 to be unveiled at E3!

The previous chapter has been altered slightly in the way that Reimu uses a spell card to perform Dimensional Rift.

**Chapter 9  
Poisonous and Forsaken**

* * *

Kogasa and Medicine stared at each other for several seconds, and then the former said, "Why… Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to destroy the place you live in and kill the people you know…? How can you do something like this…?"

"You're also a thrown away object like me," Medicine told her. "You should know very well the feeling of being thrown away just because you are old. It's time that someone do something about those who mistreat objects like us. They shall pay the price for not loving their properties more."

"It's true that we are all thrown away objects… Or we were got forgotten by our owners, who never came back to look for us," Kogasa said. "However, I think getting revenge at them because of this is not a valid reason for what you're doing. What can you possibly gain from destroying Gensokyo and killing everyone here? Admittedly, we do not know each other very well nor do we meet often, but I know that you've been here for a while already, more so than me, so don't you have any feelings for this place?"

"I will have better feelings for this place after I've made it a paradise for dolls," Medicine replied.

"No… That's not a nice-sounding paradise! A paradise created from mass genocide is in no way ideal at all!" said Kogasa, starting to get angry. "I see it a better idea to let those people know the importance of showing affection to non-living things by educating them and letting them know how useful and important we are to them! Trying to educate them through this method is not acceptable! I've been trying very hard to make people realize the usefulness of thrown away and abandoned objects.

"A few days ago, I found a pair of abandoned sandals that I gave to an old man with worn out sandals, and he loves it very much! This may only be the first step to letting people know that old objects can still be used, but I believe if we do things like this more, we can eventually let everyone realize this! We can gather together as many old objects as we can and put them on sale! I'm sure those without proper income will be more than willing to buy and put them to good use! Isn't this a better idea?"

"No, unless we let them learn things the hard way, they will never be able to learn the usefulness of non-living things," said Medicine, not agreeing with her way of thinking. "It's time they pay their prices for doing this for so long. Did what you do make a big difference?"

"Like I said, it's only the first step and a small one too, so there won't be a big change happening right away," Kogasa told her. "If we keep this up…"

"Enough!" Medicine suddenly shouted at her. "Whether or not those people had their chances, I will no longer tolerate the likes of us being treated as trash! Humans! Demons! Everyone is the same! They only show concern and respect to things that live and breathe! They fail to realize that non-living things like us are just as valuable and important as living things! They only show affection to us because we have uses, but once we become useless or something better comes along, they throw us away without much of a second thought! They only care about new things! TODAY IS THE DAY I WILL UNLEASH MY WRATH AGAINST ALL THOSE WHO OFFENDED US NON-LIVING OBJECTS! ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP ME MUST DIE!"

**BGM: Poison Panic (remix of Forsaken Doll, by Kitsune's Workshop)**

After throwing a fit of rage, Medicine took a deep breath and then released from her mouth a stream of purple liquid in Kogasa's direction, and the karakasa quickly avoided it by jumping very high up into the air. Using her true form, the umbrella, she slowly floated down on the other side of the bomb. When she landed, Medicine appeared from the side and shot purple liquid at her again, but she used her umbrella to block the attack.

"Please reconsider your actions!" Kogasa told her. "You will surely regret killing everyone here! Sure, immortals would survive, but then they would come after you for revenge! You're only digging your own grave by doing this! You won't be getting any benefit out of this!"

"Silence! I'm not going to listen to anyone who does not agree with my way of doing things!" Medicine angrily said, and then she blew poisonous gas at her. Kogasa quickly ran from the incoming gas until she was in a safe location.

"I really don't want to fight you… if I can convince you using words…" Kogasa said. "Please… don't make me use violence… I don't really like using violence…"

"Then either you leave me alone or stay still and let me kill you!" Medicine said as she walked in her direction.

"I can't let you do the former, and it's not killing me will change your mind either!" Kogasa told her. "I will do whatever it takes to stop you, even if I must do something I don't really like!" Kogasa then swung her umbrella to make it release a glob of water at Medicine, who countered by spitting a glob of poison at it. Both projectiles cancelled out each other in midair and sent small drops of themselves flying everywhere.

Medicine then spit a constant stream of poison at Kogasa, who used her umbrella to shield herself. Medicine stopped this attack and then spit several purple globs into the air above the karakasa, and they exploded and sent drops of poison raining down all over the place. Kogasa held up her umbrella for defense, but while the poisonous rain was still happening, Medicine spit globs of poison at her from the front. The karakasa quickly hurled herself to the side and rolled along the grass when she landed, and thus she was able to escape from the poison entirely.

When she got up, Kogasa swung her umbrella rapidly to fire several globs of water at Medicine. The doll quickly ran to the side to avoid them, and then she breathed a large amount of poisonous gas that spread out in Kogasa's direction. Seeing the gas approaching, Kogasa quickly flung her umbrella very high up into the air, so high that it went above the poisonous gas. Suddenly, Kogasa faded out of existence.

Confused, Medicine looked left and right for signs of the karakasa. Unknown to her, Kogasa materialized in the air where the umbrella was. "Umbrella Sign: One-legged Return Kick!" She shouted while spinning her umbrella in circles, and then she thrust her right leg in Medicine's direction to make her geta shoot forward, and the geta was covered in a red aura as it shot through the air. It struck Medicine in the back of the head.

SMACK!

The geta quickly returned to Kogasa's foot as she descended to the grass, and then she held out a spell card. "Monster Sign: A Forgotten Umbrella's Night Train!" The card glowed with bright, white light, and then a row of spinning, gray umbrellas came out one after another from the mass of light it had become.

Medicine was still rubbing the back of her head when she saw the umbrella's approaching, and she tried to counter them with a stream of poison. However, the lead umbrella penetrated the stream of poison with no effort and continued heading for Medicine. The first umbrella hit her bounced away, but she was struck with an impact strong enough to make her take a few steps back and almost lose her balance. The next umbrella in line immediately struck her afterwards, and the same thing happened. One by one, all the umbrellas hit her until there were no more, and the doll had fallen on her back after getting hit by the last one.

Medicine got back up again, growling angrily at Kogasa. "Please! Stop this already!" Kogasa told her. "I don't want to continue fighting, lest I hurt you too much! Please stop already!"

"Nobody is stopping me! Nobody!" Medicine angrily said. She held up Shou's pagoda and used it to fire several laser beams at Kogasa, who used her umbrella to block the projectiles. However, one of the beams, instead of flying straight ahead, curved to the side when it was close to touching the umbrella and then curved again to hit Kogasa in the side. The karakasa cried as she lowered her umbrella from being hit, and then she was struck continuously by the laser beams coming from the front.

Medicine stopped using the pagoda and then took a deep breath before shooting a large amount of poisonous liquid at Kogasa, dousing her from head to toe.

SPLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

**BGM Ends**

When Medicine was done shooting poison from her mouth, she looked at Kogasa, who was on her back and doused in poison. While the latter coughed and gasped for air, the doll demon walked up to her. When she was close to Kogasa, she was surprised to see the karakasa slowly getting back up on her feet, though she was having a hard time doing so. "You're still able to stand…?" the doll demon asked.

However, Kogasa didn't have the strength to stand back up entirely. She fell on one knee and used her umbrella to support herself while breathing heavily. "You can't possibly be staying up for long in this state," Medicine told her. "You may not be human, but never underestimate my poison. I can alter the properties of my poison to make them poison even those who are highly resilient to poisoning. You shouldn't push yourself too hard to stand back up, as it will only make you suffer more."

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Kogasa suddenly let out a scream that shocked Medicine, and then in an instant, the karakasa stood up on both feet and swung her umbrella like a baseball bat at the doll demon, knocking her head off the body.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Medicine's head shot through the air like a baseball with a dumbfounded look on the face. The body wobbled in place for a few seconds before falling back, and then it got up and ran awkwardly in the direction the head flew. Kogasa fell on both knees and said, "I… did… I… did… it…! I hope…" She then looked at the bomb. "The bomb… What… do I… do… about… that…?"

Kogasa suddenly heard the sound of car engine, so she turned around to see a pickup truck driving in her direction. When the truck came to a stop, two kappas, one with short, black hair and a blue-haired, bespectacled one with twin pigtails, stepped out of the front part of the truck. Three more kappas were at the back of the truck, alongside a tall, black, rectangular machine.

"That girl over there!" the black-haired kappa said to Kogasa. "This place is dangerous! You better leave here at once!"

The bespectacled one looked at the bomb and was surprised to see Nitori lying next to it. The kappas quickly ran up to her, and one with short, blue hair shook her to wake her up, "What happened, Nitori?! You don't look in top condition!"

"I… Poison… Medicine…" Nitori weakly replied. The kappas didn't entirely understand what she was saying, but hearing the words "poison" and "Medicine" gave some of them a slight idea of what might have happened.

Just then, Reimu descended from nearby and ran up to them. "It's the Hakurei Shrine Maiden!" the bespectacled kappa said.

"Nitori! What happened?!" Reimu asked the poisoned kappa. "It's Medicine, right?"

"She… poisoned me… and used Shou's pagoda… to knock out… Hatate…" Nitori weakly replied. "I'm sorry… I don't think… I have the strength to defuse… the bomb… anymore…"

"But you're the only one here with enough skills to defuse bombs!" the black-haired kappa told her. "I'm still learning how to defuse one properly, so I don't have faith in defusing this one!"

"Well, that's why we brought this air-freshening machine," said a kappa with long, blue hair.

"But this bomb is created using the reactor's core, so the size of the explosion will definitely be monstrous!" explained a kappa with wavy, blue hair that reached up to her shoulders. "There's no way this machine can clear the poison without the latter spreading all over the place! The only way it will work is if the poison is confined into a small space to keep it from spreading out."

Reimu looked at the screen on the bomb and saw that there was about forty-five minutes left. "We still have a bit of time, so why don't one of you just try and defuse it? Wouldn't that make things a lot easier?"

"I'm the only here other than Nitori who knows something about defusing bombs," the black-haired one said, "but like I said earlier, I'm still in-training, so I don't have much faith in defusing it. If things go wrong, it will likely go off earlier than usual!"

"That's where your air freshening machine comes into play, right?" Reimu asked her. "We'll just turn it on, and if the bomb still goes off… Well, you get what I'm saying…"

"Ahem, did you hear what I just now said about the machine not being able to purify the poison all at once without confining the latter into a small space first?" the wavy-haired kappa asked her.

"Don't worry; I have that covered," Reimu said. "Just watch if the worst happens."

Though unsure if what Reimu said could be trusted, the kappas decided to do as she said, so the black-haired one went over to the bomb to defuse it. While she was doing this, Reimu went up to Kogasa and said to her, "You did well."

"I'm… I'm glad to be of… help…" the karakasa weakly said.

"It's all right," Reimu said to her. "We'll get you treatment after this is over. Hang in there for now, okay? You're an umbrella, albeit a living one, so I doubt the poison will claim your life that fast."

"You're right… I can't say I'm completely immune to poison… but at least I'm sure I can resist it… to some extent…" Kogasa replied.

The black-haired kappa trembled nervously as she tried to pick the right wires to cut. Nitori said to her, "The yellow… The yellow one… That should be the… last one to cut…"

"Yellow one? Okay…" the kappa said, and then she cut the yellow wire, only to realize that she mistook an orange wire for that one. "Oops…" She sweated nervously as she slowly turned her head to the screen, and then she "turned white".

"What happened?" the long-haired kappa asked as she looked at the screen, and she "turned white" as well. "One… One… minute…? What… What have you… done…?"

"I… I'm… sorry…" said the black-haired kappa as tears filled up the corners of her eyes. "I told you… I'm still not skilled… at this…"

Hearing what happened, Reimu immediately told the other kappas to turn on the air-freshening machine right away and then move it a bit of a distance from the bomb. They quickly did as she said, and then the shrine maiden told them to get everyone else out of the clearing at once and go as far away as possible from it. When they did as she said, Reimu slapped a paper amulet onto the part of the grass in front of the bomb and then performed a series of hand signs to form a box-shaped barrier around the latter.

She then moved back a few feet before placing another amulet onto the grass, once again performing a series of hand signs to create another box-shaped barrier. She kept on doing this until there were six barriers around the bomb and the air-freshening machine was in between the fifth and sixth one. "This better work…" she thought.

When time was up, the bomb turned bright orange for about second before suddenly exploding in a burst of purple gas that instantly shattered the barrier around it.

**BGM: Swaying Lily of the Valley, Unleashing the Human form! ~ Poison Body (remix of Forsaken Doll, arranged by Ibiza)**

The second barrier only managed to contain the explosion for a second before being destroyed. The third barrier got destroyed quickly as well, though it managed to contain the explosion for a tad bit longer than the second one.

When the fifth barrier was shattered, the air-freshener was pushed back by the force of the gas and against the sixth barrier, which Reimu made sure was the strongest, so the explosion wasn't able to shatter it. However, cracks started to appear on the surface of the barrier, so she placed some paper amulets onto it to mend and strengthen it. In case this barrier wasn't able to hold up, she moved back to create the seventh barrier.

While this was happening, the earth shook violently, so violently that most people in Gensokyo could feel it. The Human Village, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Youkai Mountain, and even the underground… Everyone was surprised by this sudden earthquake, and some even ran for cover to protect themselves.

Kogasa, Hatate, and the kappas were watching from afar at the sight that could be described as horrifying happening before their eyes. The purple gas behind the barriers was churning violently, trying to break through the barrier. Holding up these barriers was a tiring task for Reimu, because their strength depended on her spiritual energy. As the explosion was trying to break through the barriers, the shrine maiden had to channel lots of spiritual energy into them in order to keep them held up.

"C'mon! End already!" the shrine maiden said in her head.

The air-freshening machine was currently doing its work. When it detected polluted air around it, it started releasing a substance from inside it that caused the air to be purified. "How long until the air-freshening machine purifies everything inside?!" the long-haired kappa asked.

"I've turned its power to the max, but with an explosion like that, it may take several minutes!" the black-haired kappa replied.

"I'm starting to think that we should've made more than one!" the wavy-haired kappa asked.

"On the bright side, the barrier holding back the gas will cause the latter to move slower and slower. Eventually, they will not be able to break through the barriers," the black-haired kappa said.

More and more cracks appeared on the surface of the sixth barrier, and eventually, it shattered, so the gas quickly rushed out against the seventh barrier. Reimu quickly placed several paper amulets against the barrier and then moved back to create the eighth one. "C'mon! I can't keep this up all day!" Reimu angrily said. "Hurry up and stop spreading outward already! Purify the air already as well, you seemingly useless machine! Is this the best the power of science can do?!"

There was a small screen on the front part of the machine indicating how much of the air around it was purified using percentages. The percentage shown on it was currently at nine percent, and it was slowly increasing every three or so seconds. Reimu was feeling weaker and weaker due to holding up the barrier, so she stopped to rest for a while. As long as the gas wasn't breaking through the barrier, she didn't have to do anything. She looked at the gas churning behind the seventh barrier and saw that it was moving around in there more and more slowly.

Suddenly, she felt something heading toward her from the side, so she moved out of the way to avoid a stream of poison that was fired at her. She turned to Medicine, who was standing down there. "I won't let you ruin my plan!" the doll demon angrily said to her.

"Like I'll let your diabolical plan come to fruition!" Reimu said as she took out several paper amulets. Reimu threw them, and they homed in on Medicine. When they were close to touching the doll demon, a layer of poison came out from her skin, coating her from head to toe for a second before splashing everywhere, disintegrating the amulets.

"Fog Sign: Gassing Garden!" Medicine shouted before spitting a large amount of poisonous gas, and out from the gas, colorful bullets were formed and flew at Reimu, who moved left and right constantly to avoid getting shot.

"Demon Buster!" Reimu shouted as she flung several paper amulets glowing with pink auras that went through the gas. Because the gas was thick, Medicine was unable to tell that the amulets were heading in her direction, so when they emerged from the other side, she was caught by surprise and got blasted by them rapidly. Reimu suddenly appeared next to her out of thin air and kicked her in the waist to send her tumbling to the side. After that, the shrine maiden flung several paper amulets that latched onto Medicine's body.

Before the horrified doll could do anything, the amulets glowed with bright, blue light for a second before exploding.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Pieces of Medicine's body flew out of the explosion and fell all over the place. Reimu walked over to the head and said to it, "You lose. Don't bother trying anymore!"

"Curse… Curse you, Hakurei shrine maiden!" the disembodied head angrily said.

**BGM Ends**

* * *

Yukari yawned as she stretched her arms high up into the air after waking up from her lengthy sleep. Ran was passing by her room when she heard the yawn, so she went inside and said to her, "It's good to have you awake at last, Mistress Yukari!"

"That was a nice sleep…" Yukari said while rubbing her eye. "Somehow, I feel like I missed out quite a lot as a result…"

"You cannot be any truer than that," Ran told her.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED

The way Medicine coated her body with poison is inspired by Magellan, who has the power to generate poison from his body, from One Piece. In fact, I plan to have her use her abilities like him when she appears and fights in my stories again.

I tried my best to translate the name of the second theme, as I wasn't able to find its English name anywhere, only the Japanese. You should search using the term "Ibiza" if you want to find that theme.

Also, I'm aware that a certain part of the first theme doesn't fit as a battle theme, as it is too quiet and slow-paced. However, I wanted that battle to have an intense orchestral BGM, and that one seems to be the best I could find. You can imagine the quiet part playing when Kogasa is telling Medicine to stop after using Monster Sign: A Forgotten Umbrella's Night Train if you want to. It probably fits more there.

Because it is generally agreed that the umbrella is Kogasa's true form, while the girl is simply a projection, my version of Kogasa is able to "teleport" by separating herself from the umbrella. To put it simple, if the umbrella is separated too far from the body, the body will be able to warp to wherever the umbrella is. Hope you get what I mean…

Lastly, those kappas that showed up are the ones seen in Wild and Horned Hermit. The Japanese refers to them as the Kappa Mob.


	10. Peaceful Land of the East

In chapter 7, Hatate's attack where she locked onto people with her cell phone and then fired laser beams at them is now named.

**Final Chapter  
Peaceful Land of the East**

* * *

After being told about what happened by Ran, Yukari wasted no time in heading over to the Human Village to see how things were. She didn't even bother to eat breakfast. By the time she got there, she saw that all the demons had been subdued by the combined efforts of the police force, Mokou and Keine, the Myouren crew, and the Taoist crew.

As for the poison, it was still contained inside the barriers created by Reimu. The gas had finally stopped trying to spread out, so there was no fear of it breaking through the barrier anymore. All that was left was for the air-freshening machine made by the kappas to purify the poison until the air was safe to breathe again.

Seeing that it was safe to leave the poison and the barriers alone, Reimu and the others quickly rounded up Human Being's men and Medicine, and then she told some kappas to fly over to the top of the cliff with her to help round up Human Being himself and two more of his men. When they got there, they saw that Marisa had bounded the leader using the rope that once bounded her. His men were knocked out in front of him. According to her, they got back up again, but she gave them some good blasting using magic to knock them out again.

Soon, all the villains were brought to the Human Village, where their fate would be decided.

It was finally over…

Human Being and Medicine's plan had finally been put to an end…

Gensokyo was saved…

Reimu was breathing heavily on her bed sheet. Four hours had passed, and as Eirin said, she instantly felt tired. Perhaps tired wasn't the best term to put it, as Reimu felt as if she was going to die any second. She dared not to put a blanket over herself. As light as it was, the blanket almost crushed her when it was placed over her body.

Ruukoto was seated next to her with a cheerful look on her face while tending to her. Despite the look on her face, Ruukoto was actually very worried about her master's wellbeing, but she was programmed to be smiling all the time, so she had very little to no control over her expression. "Are you feeling all right, master?" she asked the suffering shrine maiden.

"Do… Do… I… look like… I'm all right… to you…?" Reimu weakly replied. Even trying to speak was a hard task for her. "I… might… as well… be dead… now… Eirin… wasn't… kidding… when she… said… you would… become very… tired… after… four hours… Ugh… I didn't… expect it… to be… this… bad… Ugh… I'm dying… here…"

Just then, Marisa landed at the yard and came into the shrine. "Reimu, are you all right?" she asked shrine maiden.

"Are you… blind…?" asked Reimu, sounding angry.

"Okay… I'll take that as a no…" the witch said. "Guess Eirin wasn't kidding at all… Boy… You look horrible… I wouldn't want to be in your shoes at all… And to think that you need to be like this for two days… I can't imagine how you're going to live through it…"

"Thanks for… not making… things… any… more… comforting…" Reimu said to her.

"I'm here to fill you in with some news," Marisa told her. "Medicine and the six prisoners that Human Being released from the police station are all put behind bars. As for Human Being and his original subordinates, it was decided that since they came from the outside world, so they should be judged by the authorities there, so Yukari brought them back to the outside world. And guess what that guy had to say?"

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

As Human Being and his men, all bounded by ropes, sat in front of Yukari and a large gap, the former said, "Just because you managed to save your world doesn't mean you've won. I've managed to prove my point in the end. Life is harsh, cruel, and full of sufferings. Demons are bound to their natures of consuming human flesh and causing trouble, as you can see that I managed to convince them to wreck havoc to the village and also Medicine to go ahead and try to slay the entire population of this place. All it takes is a good convincing to drive people to do what they really want to do.

"Even after I'm gone, things are not going to become any better for both this place and the whole world. Evil and life go together hand in hand. As long as life exists, so will evil. Don't go telling me that incidents will no longer happen here after I'm gone. As long as demons continue to wander around, incidents are bound to happen, and eventually, one of them will find the courage to break the restrictions imposed on him and then act the way he is meant to be.

"Even without demons, you humans are also bound to do something similar. As I always say, humans are evil by nature. Wherever there are people, someone will definitely always try to do something to hurt someone and bring terror to all. No matter how hard you try to keep such things from happening, it's not going to work. The more you try to keep lawlessness from happening, the more you become corrupted, as strong desires for peace and order eventually leads to dictatorship. You impose rules on other people and demand that they do whatever you want them to do for the sake of peace, but in reality, you are bringing burden and hardship on others with your so-called peace enforcement.

"Know this, there is no such thing as true peace. All attempts to create true peace will only lead to corruption, which is one of the evils of human nature!"

_END OF FLASHBACK_

* * *

"He really showed no fear that time…" Marisa said. "I can't believe that someone like him exists… At least we can be sure he won't be returning to Gensokyo again, I think…"

"He… better… not…" Reimu said.

"I'm more worried about Medicine, though," Marisa told her. "Apparently, she hasn't learned her lesson yet, as she said that if the opportunity rises, she's definitely going to attempt to liberate dolls from everyone again…"

"Like she can… do it… as long as I'm… around…" Reimu said.

"I think you shouldn't be talking now…" Marisa told her. "You're suffering a lot just trying to say something… Rest for now, okay? Everything is over now, so you deserve a well-earned rest-ze!"

Suddenly, a gap appeared next to Reimu, and Yukari came out of it. "Hello there, Reimu!" she said to the shrine maiden. "How are you feeling?" The shrine maiden glared at her in response. "Okay, I'll take that as not feeling well… Sorry if I'm bothering you…"

"When did you ever not bother people with your sudden and uninformed appearances?" Marisa asked her. "And also, you sure know how to pick times to go into 'hibernation', you know that? While that guy is wrecking havoc in our homeland and even came close to destroying it, you were taking your beauty sleep and dreaming of wonderful things! So much for being one of the protectors of Gensokyo…"

"At least I sent him and his men to a police station in the outside world in the end, and that's doing a lot" Yukari told her. "Besides, I didn't expect to feel sleepy all of a sudden. Now that I think of it, I started feeling sleepy after something stung me in the back while I was on my way back to Mayohiga. I found a tiny pin stuck to my back… That must've been what caused me to go into a deep sleep…"

"A pin hit you in the back?" Marisa curiously said. "Who would target you and why would he do that? Wait a minute… Why do I have the feeling that it's that guy's doing…?"

"Judging from what I heard about him always being prepared for everything, I dare say it's his doing," Yukari said with a nod. "He knew that I would be the most troublesome to deal with, so he put me out of commission using a powerful tranquilizer. I have to give it to him for succeeding in doing this… Bested by a human in a sneaky manner… My… How the mighty has fallen…"

"That guy really sure caused a ruckus here, but I'm glad that he's finally out of here…" Marisa said.

"I made sure that the police took him in before I left, so you can be sure that he will never terrorize us or anyone in the outside world again, assuming that he doesn't escape, that is…" Yukari said.

"Please… Don't make us scared…" Marisa said.

"If… the both of you… are done… talking… then please… leave me… alone… I want to… sleep… but can't… with you… talking…" Reimu weakly said.

"Oh, sorry about that," Yukari said to her. "Well, I'll be taking my leave. Again, I'm sorry for barely doing anything at all. I really do feel bad for all the things you've been through while that guy was here, so you really do deserve this rest. Hope you get better soon!" With that, Yukari stepped back inside the gap she created, and then it closed and disappeared.

"Well, I'll be taking my leave too," Marisa said to Reimu. "Get well soon-ze!" The witch then left on her broom, and Ruukoto waved good-bye to her.

"Finally… some silence…" Reimu said before closing her eyes, and she fell asleep a few seconds later.

**BGM: Endless Dream (vocal remix of Dream Battle, arranged by EastNewSound)**

* * *

Within the sickroom of Eientei, Eirin was looking at the results she got from checking up on Kogasa, who was lying on a sickbed. "Your condition is better than I thought!" Eirin said to her. "Guess not being a living thing to begin with really does give you more immunity to poison!"

"I'm glad to hear that!" Kogasa happily said.

"Still, Medicine's poison is not something to be underestimated," the doctor told her. "I managed to collect quite a few samples of some of the poisons she produced, and I have to admit that she is very good at creating poisons I have never seen before. I'm actually afraid that she can create more poison than I can create the cures for… Anyway, your condition isn't dangerous, so the antidote I gave you will heal you in about a day. Just take a rest here for a day, and then you can be on your tomorrow."

"Thanks a lot, doctor!" the karakasa said.

"You did a good job trying to help save Gensokyo too! You deserve a rest for this! Okay, I won't disturb you anymore. I have to tend to Nitori and Hatate too," Eirin said before leaving the room.

Kogasa looked up at the ceiling with a smile and said in her head, "I'm glad that I managed to do something great and noteworthy! All right! After I've fully recovered, I will continue to spread the news that old and worn out objects still have uses! With faith and determination, I can surely let everyone realize this! I've got to try my best in this! Hopefully, this will prevent tsukumogami like Medicine from appearing again!"

* * *

In her house, Aya was lying on her bed, looking very tired and almost as if she was dying. Kara was seated next to her with a worried look on her face. "You really shouldn't have taken that pill…" she said to Aya. "It's not like you're in a hurry to return to top condition… The shrine maiden has a reason, but what reason do you have? It's not like Bunbummaru is in danger of not having you…"

"Somehow… I feel as if… Eirin… purposely gave me… that pill… in order to make me… like this…" Aya weakly said. "What was she… thinking… exactly…?"

Kara said in her mind, "If this was to stop her from spreading lies and exaggerated information in her newspaper for at least two days or keep her from prying her nose into other people's business… Then yeah… I can understand why the doctor suddenly decided to give her those pills… I always thought the sudden change of heart was a bit too… skeptical…"

* * *

Byakuren and her followers were on their way back to the Myouren Temple from the Human Village. "It's great to have my pagoda back in a good condition!" Shou happy said while looking at the miniature pagoda in her hand.

"Better keep your eye on it and not let it get stolen again," Nazrin told her.

Ichirin looked at Byakuren and said, "Are you feeling all right, Mistress Hijiri?"

Byakuren looked at her with a smile and said, "I'm all right! Why'd you ask?"

"Just wanted to know how you feel after fighting a horde of demons, and fighting is something you don't enjoy very much," Ichirin replied. "Furthermore, you witnessed Miko and her followers killing some of the demons… When you talked to her about that… Did you see her attitude when she expressed her opinion to you about killing demons? Who does she think she is?! Just because she used to be a royalty in the past doesn't mean she can speak to you in such a proud manner like that!"

"Don't worry; I'm not in a bad mood because of that," Byakuren said as she turned to look at the front. "However, it's true that I do not accept her way of doing things and also her view toward demons. Even so, it's understandable why she would have those kinds of views toward them. We may not be able to convince them to change their way of thinking so easily, but we will not let them change our way of thinking either. We believe in peace and unity between humans and demons, so no matter what happens, even if it's something like what happened today, we will continue to spread the message that both species can indeed live together in peace!"

"That's the spirit, Mistress Hijiri!" Minamitsu happily said. "We'll give you our best support!"

* * *

Alice, Yuki, and Mai were walking through the Forest of Magic, talking with each other about what happened recently. "So those criminals are apprehended and then sent back to the outside world," Alice said. "Looks like Gensokyo can have peace once again!"

"That guy got what he deserved!" Yuki said. "Let this be a lesson to him for trying to mess with us!"

"They should've executed him on spot," Mai said.

Alice turned to her and asked, "Are you always talking about horrifying things like death and killing…? Think of more cheerful things, can you?!"

"So… now that the situation here is better, I think we'll return to Makai tomorrow afternoon or so," said Yuki, changing the subject. "You want to come back with us?"

"It's all right," Alice told her. "Just say hi to Mistress Shinki for me. I'll go back there myself when I feel like it."

"Well, if that's what you want," Yuki said with a shrug.

"Also, be sure to tell her about Mai's sick and atrocious behavior," Alice added. "Tell her that I am NOT pleased with her actions!"

"It's not like she doesn't know anything about this nor does she not do anything about it…" Yuki said.

* * *

Kotohime walked down the prison lane and looked at each of the prisoners, one of which was Medicine, whose body was put back together. She said to two of her colleagues, who were standing behind her, without turning around, "Good work today! While lives were lost and damages were done, we still managed to save most of the village from those criminals and the demons!"

"We were only doing our job as the protectors and law enforcers of the Human Village, commissioner," one of the policemen said.

"You still deserve a reward for your actions!" Kotohime said as she turned around to face her colleagues. "I'm not the chief officer here, so obviously, it's not in my place to give you a raise or promote you. However, in the very least, I'll treat you all to dinner after the cleaning up of the village is finished!"

"It is pleasure to be treated to dinner by you," the same policeman said. "However, like I said just now, we were simply doing our job, so such a reward is not necessary."

"Your job or not, you still deserve a reward, like I said just now!" Kotohime said to him. "Anyway, it's been decided! Once things have gotten better here in the village, I'll treat you all to dinner!"

"Thank you very much, commissioner!" the other police officer, a woman, said to her.

* * *

Reimu was still in her slumber, and this time, she was sleeping in peace. Ruukoto was sweeping leaves in the yard, and then Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire came and greeted her. The three fairies were carrying with them baskets containing chestnuts, which they wanted to give to Reimu as gifts. The robotic maid greeted back and told her not to disturb her mistress, but they can go in and make themselves comfortable if they want to.

The three fairies nodded and then went into the shrine to look at the shrine maiden sleeping. After putting down the basket of chestnuts next to her, the three fairies quietly wished her a peaceful sleep before leaving the shrine.

Shortly after they left, a smile appeared on Reimu's face.

**BGM Ends**

The weather in Gensokyo was great that day…

* * *

.

.

.

.

_THE END_

_.  
_

_.  
_

_.  
_

_.  
_

Though not many people reviewed, I'm still glad that most people enjoyed this short story. Thank you for reading until the end!

In the end, I think Yuki and Mai were rather pointless additions to this story, as they didn't contribute much. Admittedly, the reason I threw in Yuki and Mai was because the latter is my favorite PC-98 character, and I really want to show off my portrayal of her…

Having Shou's pagoda stolen seemed rather pointless too… I thought of letting those criminals enjoy their wealth by using the pagoda to create treasure, but they need to have treasures themselves first before that is possible. Only by exposing the pagoda to the light of treasures can the former produce more treasure. At least Medicine put it to use, even if not much…

Also, if you want to find the mentioned BGM, then search up either "Touhou EastNewSound Dream Battle" or "Touhou 果てしない夢". The first video is the one you're looking for if you look up the latter. Also, a non-vocal version exists for it too, so please don't mistake it for the vocal one.

The only characters I own here are Human Being, his subordinates, Kara, and Kaede (may she rest in peace…). Random no named characters are insignificant.

If you are hoping to see more Touhou stories from me, then you won't have to wait long! The next installment in my Touhou series is already planned out and soon to be released! Please check out the preview at the bottom for an idea of what you will be reading! Until next time!

God bless you all!

* * *

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_Day 40_

_I think I have stayed here long enough. Two of my friends have lost their lives in this dangerous and savage land. It is time that the last of us find our way out of this world…_

_I still remember very clearly what was in the last page before we found ourselves here… It looks like the top of a temple, and I have every reason to believe that it is the very same temple that can be seen from this tree house. We believe that our way out of here is on top of that temple._

_We have to act fast. The dangers here are way too much for anyone with common sense to want to stay behind._

_I leave behind this notebook and my compass, in case anyone ever stumbled upon this dreadful place…_

_This will without doubt be my last entry. Whether or not we can leave this place and return to our own world is unknown. Even if we die trying, we will at least leave behind hints and the path to the exit with our last breaths…_

_If you are reading this notebook, then I wish you a good luck in making your way home…_

.

.

TOUHOU PROJECT

_DANGERS OF THE DARK AND DEEP_


End file.
